Japanese Internment And Racism In Canada

It is pretty undisputable that the Canadians did hold prejudice and was racist towards the Japanese people. Many believe this to be the driving reason to the Japanese’ internment.
Pre-Pearl Harbor, racism was not as intense, but still was real. There was some level of racism ever since the first Japanese people entered Canada in 1877 ("The Internment of the Japanese during World War II."). They were always looked down upon for the inability to speak the language there. Many businesses owned by Japanese people were vandalised, making it increasingly difficult for Japanese people to live in Canada. However, the Japanese Canadians posed no military threat at all, protecting them from any higher level of racism. After the Empire of Japanese decided to attacked Pearl Harbor, everything made a turn for the worse. Now, in addition with the moderate level of racism the Japanese were experiencing, the Canadian people thought they posed a threat as terrorists; making life exponentially harder for them. This led to many Japanese businesses, not only being vandalised, but destroyed by

The original plan set by the Canadian Government was to intern the adult Japanese males, doing so would quickly remove and discard any military threat they posed, and, take the Japanese out of the competition for jobs and businesses. However, the Canadian Government choose to intern the kids and women at a later date also, even though they posed less of a threat than the males. This shows the government in British Columbia just wanted the Japanese interned and locked away. The Japanese males, posed almost no threat according to Canada’s Navy, and their Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Izumi(Japanese Canadian exclusion and incarceration). This shows, that the Canadian Government was not as interested in the economic benefits of their people, and that they were aware that the Japanese people posed close no threat at