Japanese Internment (You Tube)

The clip starts talking about a family that was ousted from their home and sent to Hastings Park (Canada.)

They were sent the the animal barn at Hastings Park. One of the people from the family that was there said that the first thing that hit them was the smell of urine and feces.

There were rows and rows of metal bunk beds in the building.

These became the toilets.

The bunks had no mattresses, and only two Army blankets.

Two weeks later the family was shipped out by train.

They were sent to the Canadian interior.

The father of the family had been sent to a labor camp.

The family moved from British Columbia to Alberta. It wasn't exactly voluntary; they were told if they wanted to be reunited with the father, they had to agree to go work on the beet farms.

They were housed in a 10 x 15 foot shack.

They eventually returned to British Columbia, but only via going through a series of internment camps.

There are clips from a Canadian propaganda film which tried to make the camps look like something wonderful.

The Canadian government confiscated their property, and the property of others, and sold it.

In March of 1945, the Japanese living in internment camps were told to get out of British Columbia completely. Their choice was to move east of the Rockies, or to be deported.

They returned to the sugar beet fields of Alberta.

They eventually opened a restaurant.

They eventually moved back to their home area, but had to buy a different house since everything they had had been sold by the government.

There were those who objected to the family returning to Salt Spring Island.

Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page