Internment, Dispossession, and Redress: A Japanese Canadian Story

1. Introduce students to the statements on the Beliefs handout.
   • Students will be required to evaluate some statements based on their beliefs. This activity generates discussion and thinking about some of the issues students will investigate in this unit.
   • Students will be asked to provide and explain their opinions. (This will enable the teacher to survey baseline attitudes held by students.)
   • Students will share their opinions on several statements – because they are subjective, there are no incorrect answers. Opinions may change as students acquire more information.
   • The blank box can be used for any issue the teacher or students want to include.
2. Hand out the Beliefs sheet. Read the statements aloud with the class. Under the “before discussion” section, ask students to mark “agree” or “disagree” to reflect how they feel about each statement. “Agree” means the student agrees with the statement or feels the statement is correct. “Disagree” means the student disagrees with the statement or feels the statement is incorrect. The strict “agree” or “disagree” viewpoints may pose a problem for the undecided.
   • Emphasize doing the “before discussion” section only, and students should do this independently (because they may change their minds after they hear other people’s opinions).
   • Teachers should consider asking students to do this first part in pen so they cannot change their initial responses. This requires students to make independent decisions.
3. Once students have finished the “before discussion” section, put up two signs on opposite sides of your classroom: “Agree” and “disagree.” Read the first statement. Ask students to stand underneath their answer and explain why they chose them. Once students have given their opinions, allow them to change their answers and stand under their “after discussion” answer.
4. Changes in answers may generate further discussion. Some suggested questions are:
   • Why did you agree or disagree?
   • What would be an example?
   • What are your reasons for saying this?
   • What led you to that belief?
   • How could we find out if this is true or false?
   • Who is in a position to know if that is the case?
5. Students go back to their desks to fill in their “after discussion” answer.

Repeat until all statements have been covered.

Make critical thinking skills explicit. Give students words such as “metacognition” (thinking about their thinking) and “empathy” (being able to see things from other people’s perspective).

Questions to pose: Did you change your mind on any of the statements after discussion? Why did you (or why didn’t you) change your mind? How did your thinking change over time?

This type of discussion prepares students for the historical thinking concepts. Here are some examples:

• Significance: How is this important?
• Evidence: What proof do I have?
• Continuity and change, or cause and consequences: How do our opinions change over time as we gain more understanding?
• Historical perspectives: How do other points of view affect my thinking?

1. Divide students into teams and tell them they will be playing a game. Note: You might want to arrange the teams beforehand to make sure eye colour is distributed. One of our test teachers noticed it was hard for students to pick up on discrimination based on eye colour when there were too few blued-eyed students.
   • Begin the “FUF” game: Go from team to team and have a student give a word.
   • Regardless of the word, give the team five points if the player has brown eyes and take off a point if the player has blue or green eyes (but do not tell them what the criteria is for scoring).
   • Go through a couple of rounds of this procedure and then have the teams discuss what they think the rules are. Keep playing, but increase the scoring or the penalties erratically and at your whim (e.g. give 32 points for brown eyes and take off 26 points for blue eyes). At this point students may become frustrated. The goal of this exercise is for students to experience an unfair situation and confusion from not knowing the rules.
   • Eventually, tell students the rules.
2. Discuss the fairness of this game and how it relates to the immigrant experience (i.e., racism, not knowing the rules).
3. Ask students how they felt as they played the game and also how they felt once they found out the rules.
   • Point out the discriminatory overtones of the game:  students were not judged on performance but on a physical characteristic, which they had no control over.
4. Discuss.
5. Students complete journal reflection.

This is an overview of the Main Dispossession Activity that runs concurrently with the recommended lessons. Check also the FAQ section for this simulation.

Start this activity early to allow students time to make their homes and possessions.

Note: Internment begins. Remember to remove your avatars before this lesson. Convey how Japanese Canadians were removed from BC’s coast. Leave lots of time to unpack this.

1. Teacher introduces a photograph below to the class and models the role of a detective or reporter. Using the 5Ws and H poster, the teacher leads the discussion by asking questions such as:
   • Who is in the picture? How does each person feel about what is going on? How do I know this? (e.g. facial expressions, body language, situational clues)
   • Where is this scene happening? How do I know this? What is the evidence?
   • When is this happening? How do I know this? Could this happen today?
   • What is happening in this picture? What is going on? What is the story? How do I know this? What clues are there to tell me this?
   • Why is this happening? What events led up to this moment? How do I know this?
2. Teacher reads the historical background for the photo.
3. Divide the class into small groups to view additional photos. Tell students to act as detectives or reporters. They are to view and analyze the photographs using the 5Ws and H and write their findings on handout.
4. Students report their findings to the class.
5. After discussing each photo, the teacher reads the information for each photo to the students.
6. To explain how Japanese Canadians were forcibly removed from the coast in 1942, the teacher reads “Japanese Canadian history 1942–1988” with the students. Rather than tell students about the government selling off Japanese Canadians’ possessions, allow them to experience it themselves through the Powell Street simulation. At this point in the simulation, ask if students believed their avatars’ homes and possessions would be held in trust by the Canadian government – like the Japanese Canadians did.
7. Optional: For more information, the teacher could play some of Mary Kitagawa’s interview videos about her experiences (especially videos 6, 7 and 8).
8. Discuss.
9. Students complete journal reflection.

1. Show the PowerPoint for this activity (or start with the “important notice”). Optional: For more information, the teacher could play some of Mary Kitagawa’s interview video about her packing experience. The rest of Mary’s family gets ready to go. “What shall we pack?”
2. “What would they bring?” handout
3. Students form groups. Each group represents a family, and each student in that group takes on the role of one of the family members. See the “What would they bring?” handout. Students must come to a consensus about what to bring. The belongings must fit in the limited space on the handout. Include :
   • practical things (e.g. food, clothing, sewing machines, bedding, pots, tools, etc.)
   • things important to the family (e.g. dolls, heirlooms, etc.)
4. Each group shares what they would bring for their assigned family member.
5. Discuss.
6. Students complete journal reflection.

1. On the classroom floor, draw a box using masking tape or chalk. The box should be about four metres by seven metres. Ask 12 students to stand in this space, or even lie down. Explain how during the war, two Japanese Canadian families (of about six people each along with their belongings) had to share this space Each shack measured 14 by 24 feet (4.3 m by 7.3 m).
2. Students draw a box on a piece of graph paper that represents the floor plan of a shack (or use the shack floor plan grid). If using graph paper each centimetre square = about 30 cm (if each cm is about 1 ft., then the shack will be 14 by 24 squares in size). All the belongings of 12 people had to fit here.
3. Students show how they would organize this space for:
   • sleeping: beds and bedding
   • doing schoolwork: pencils, paper, books, etc.
   • doing daily chores: sewing, laundry, and cleaning supplies, etc.
   • clothing and cooking items
4. Ask students: Did you have any difficulty fitting your belongings in this space? What problems would you and members of your family encounter in your daily life?
5. Show photos again and focus on living conditions (Part 2, 1945 to 1949: Living in internment)
6. Divide students into groups to work together to answer questions. Each group should have a recorder and a reporter who will share their answers with the class later. Remind students of the 5Ws. Some possible questions: How much of their belongings were they allowed to take? What would they have to leave behind? What happened to their pets? What would be missing from their daily life? There were no barbed wire fences around the camp. Why didn’t Japanese Canadians just leave? Who do you think built the camp? Who were the teachers? Who provided medical care? How did they get food, clothing, toys or water? What do you wonder about?
7. Optional: For more information, watch Mary’s video interview called Rosebery.
8. Discuss.
9. Students complete journal reflection.

1. If you have not done so, tell students in 1943, the government sold Japanese Canadians’ land, businesses, and property without their permission while the Japanese Canadians were interned in camps or forced to live and work on farms in the Prairies. (If you chose to do the Powell Street simulation, this issue would have come up as the avatars’ possessions were removed after being forced out of Powell Street.)
2. Analyse one letter of protest from a Japanese Canadian. Show the letter projected on a screen or hand out photocopies to groups or individuals.
3. After reading the letter with the class, students do a think-pair-share activity:
   • Think: Using the 4-box guiding sheet, they think about the important elements of the letter: the people, property and possessions, feelings, what they want, and how they are trying to achieve what they want.
   • Pair: With a partner, they begin to fill out each section, discussing what they think and the evidence that supports their beliefs.
   • Share: The partners share with another partner group and with the rest of the class.
4.  Students write their own letters of protest.
   • From the point of view of their Powell Street avatar families, students write letters of protest to ask for their possessions back or at least fair market value for what was taken from them. Discuss the criteria of what would make an effective letter: e.g. use a convincing tone in the writing, based on fact and proof, which shows historical understanding), etc.
   • When one of our test teachers did this lesson, the students applied their understanding to bring historical context to their writing, and as they were making their case in their letters, they put in realistic aspects. For example,
     • “My husband fought for Canada in the First World War …”
     • “We owned a candy store where all the children from the neighbourhood would come…”
   • Students could use the letter template to help them write drafts of their protest letters. Refer back to the actual letters of protest from Japanese Canadians, and discuss not only what they said but how they said it. The letters tend to be polite and respectful, but assertive.
5. Have students share their letters with the class. Was it hard to write these letters? If students have ever had to ask for something back from a friend who had borrowed it, have them imagine asking the government to pay them back properly for something of theirs that was sold without their permission.
   • Make an effective display by mounting copies of their letters beside their abandoned residences on the Powell Street simulation.
   • Have students read Japanese Canadians’ letters and their own out loud for more impact.
6. Optional: For more information, watch Jordan’s video interviews about dispossession.
7. Students complete journal reflection.

1. Review the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with students. Remind students there was no Charter to protect Canadians until 1981 (the Charter was signed by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth II in 1982), but English common law provided most of the legal safeguards in the Charter that should have protected Japanese Canadians in 1941 – such as presumption of innocence, habeas corpus, property rights, etc.
2. Provide each student with the handout “The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Treatment of Japanese Canadians.”
3. Ask students to look for evidence to support or deny the claim by Japanese Canadians that they were treated unfairly and unjustly. Show the video “Minoru: Memory of Exile,” if possible.
4. The teacher and students examine the photos and decide which rights were upheld or violated and fill in the appropriate sections on the chart.
5. Discuss. 
6. Students complete journal reflection. 

1. Start the lesson with the PowerPoint.
2. Introduce the apology chart.
3. Divide students into small groups. Assign one situation from the apology chart to each group. Allow practice time for each group to role-play the issue before presenting it to the class. After each situation, students determine if an apology is needed. Students record their answers on their chart. If an apology is needed, what kind of apology should it be? (e.g. verbal, should the person do something for the other person? etc.) Students fill in the whole chart and discuss their answers with the class.
4. During the role-playing exercise, ask students if the situation would be any different if they were the victim in each situation.
5. Discuss the injustices suffered by Japanese Canadians during wartime and later (1942–1949): for example, Japanese Canadians had their homes and belongings sold off by the government, were held in prison camps, had fewer rights than other Canadians, experienced families separation, and were removed to Japan or other areas of Canada, etc.
6. Share the redress information with students – acknowledgment and compensation: Japanese Canadians received a public apology, which acknowledged the injustice of the wartime events; individual payments of $21,000 to eligible Canadians; establishment of a $12-million community fund of; clearing of criminal records for those charged under the War Measures Act; restoration of Canadian citizenship to those exiled to Japan; and the creation of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, which was established in 1997.
7. Discuss the following ideas with students:
   • Adults, even governments, make mistakes.
   • Making this apology was difficult: It was a large mistake (it happened to a large group of people who lost a great deal). It was embarrassing for both the government (Canadians do not think of themselves as racist but as accepting of cultural diversity) and Japanese Canadians (they had to ask for an apology as none was offered).
   • It took a long time. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney during his speech in the House of Commons said, “We cannot change the past. But we must, as a nation, have the courage to face up to these historical facts … to face up to the mistakes of the past, and so become better prepared to face the challenges of the future.”
   • The apology was symbolic. Though, Japanese Canadians received $21,000 each, they did not get back everything they lost; as Mulroney said, “no money can right the wrong, undo the harm, and heal the wounds. But it is symbolic.”
   • Mulroney continued, “It was important for the government to put things right between them [the Japanese Canadians] and their country [Canada]; to put things right with the surviving members of the Japanese Canadian wartime community of 22,000 persons; to put things right with their children, and ours, so that they can walk together in this country, burdened neither by the wrongs nor the grievances of previous generations. And … our solemn commitment and undertaking to Canadians of every origin that such violations will never again happen in Canada.”
8. Optional: For more information, watch Art Miki’s video interviews about redress.
9. Discuss.
10. Students complete journal reflection.