New findings by Landscapes of Injustice

A team of researchers—part of the federally funded, seven-year, multi-partner research project Landscapes of Injustice led by the University of Victoria—has uncovered a historical trail within municipal and federal archives pointing to the City of Vancouver having played a far greater role in the dispossession of Japanese Canadians than previously understood.

The Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective over the course of two years has extensively analyzed documents in city and federal archives including internal memos, minutes of council and town planning commission meetings, and minutes of meetings of federal cabinet ministers. Its findings, to be published in the forthcoming article “Suspect Properties” in the Journal of Planning History, show that Vancouver town planners involved in improving low-income housing in the 1940s initially thought they could take advantage of the uprooting of Japanese Canadians in 1942 to clear the East End, specifically the Powell Street area, and replace it with modern housing. The city sent in inspectors in a campaign to condemn the existing rental housing owned by Japanese Canadians. The city’s intention was to convince federal officials the neighbourhood was uninhabitable.

“The notion that this neighbourhood was a ‘slum’ was twisted into additional justification for the forced sale of all property of Japanese Canadians in coastal BC,” explains UVic historian Jordan Stanger-Ross, project director of Landscapes of Injustice. “I think this new evidence merits further discussion to determine what it means to take responsibility for the past.”

In the spring of 1942, Japanese Canadians in coastal BC were uprooted from their homes and dispossessed of their properties; a year later, despite assurances to the contrary, officials resolved to sell everything—contributing to material losses that would, in today’s currency, amount to at least one billion dollars.

In 2013, Vancouver council formally apologized for the city’s role in the 1942 internment of Canadians of Japanese descent.

Landscapes of Injustice is funded by a $2.5 million partnership grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is a partnership of 13 institutions led by UVic.

www.landscapesofinjustice.com
@LandscapesInjus (#1942dispossession) and facebook.com/Landscapes-of-Injustice
More on official launch of Landscapes of Injustice (August 2014)

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