1939-1952

Lesson 3: DISPOSSESSION

Landscapes of Injustice tells a story of the loss of home. It is about fear, racism, and measures taken in the name of security that made no one safer. It is also about the resilience of Japanese Canadians confronting injustice.

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Letters of Protest Activity

During the 1940s, Canada enacted mass displacement of people and dispossession of property on racial grounds — a collective moral failure that remains only partially addressed. Japanese Canadians lost their homes, farms, businesses, as well as personal, family, and communal possessions. This series of activities engages students in reading and reflecting upon the many voices that protested the forced sales. Students will also encounter responses from the Custodian and consider how many families were impacted permanently by the loss of property, income, place, and future.

SUGGESTED TIME: 120 MINUTES

Teaching Instructions

  1. In this activity students will examine selected letters of protest written by Japanese Canadians to the Office of the Custodian arguing, pleading, and requesting that their property be preserved. Hundreds of letters were written: this is a small sample of the kinds of protests shared with the Custodian.
  2. Put students into groups of 2–3 and provide Handout 3.10 Letters of Protest. One handout is to be completed by each small group for each letter they are assigned.

    - Provide one or more of the letters of protest to each group, 3.19–3.26. At this time provide only the letter of protest, not the reply from the Custodian. Explain that these letters represent a small sample of the thousands written, and that the authors come from a wide range of backgrounds. They suffered different kinds of loss and used different approaches when writing to the Custodian.

    - Allow sufficient time for a thorough reading and analysis of the letters and then bring the class together to debrief the notes recorded.

    - In the debrief take care to identify the varied themes and threads found in the letters of protest. Consider the emotional tone, explicit or implicit, in each letter and try to convey this to your students.

  3. After the debrief, distribute the corresponding reply from the Custodian to the appropriate student groups (Sources 3.27–3.34). Each reply is a specific response from the Custodian to a letter examined in step 2.

    - Provide student groups with Handout 3.11 The Custodian’s Response. Prior to having the students examine the replies, have them consider the following questions from the viewpoint of the families:

    1. What is the anticipated response?
    2. What action from the Custodian would satisfy the protest?
    3. How would the Custodian’s response impact the family?

    - Instruct students to complete the survey in Handout 3.11 The Custodian’s Response. Students fill in the survey and explain the reasons for the choices made.

    - Debrief student responses. Using the information gathered by the students take some time to probe the responses for validity, accuracy and depth of understanding.

  4. Write a reply to the Custodian. Explain that each student will take the role of the author from the letter assigned in step 2 and will be writing a response to the Custodian’s reply.

    - The response should reference the initial questions raised by the author and the response from the Custodian’s reply.

Handouts

Sources