Lecture: Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution

RCMP Corporal Davidson, pictured here in 1946, was a key agent in the effort to canvass all Japanese Canadians and maximize the number signing for exile. Library and Archives Canada, C-047387. Photographer Tak Toyota.

Event type: In-person
Location: Rotary Gallery of the Courtenay and District Museum
Speaker: UVic Professor of History Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross
Tickets: $5 for Historical Society members; $6 for general public. Advance tickets recommended. Tickets can be purchased over the phone by calling 250-334-0686 ext 2.

In September 1945, after the close of the Second World War, the Canadian government threatened over 10,000 people of Japanese descent with exile to Japan, a country that many of them had never visited.

This talk explores how this attempted mass banishment came about, how Japanese Canadians fought exile, and why this story still matters today.

Jordan Stanger-Ross is professor of history at the University of Victoria. He is author and editor of four books and dozens of other publications and the lead researcher and text author for the Broken Promises exhibition. His next book, Challenging Exile (with Professor Eric Adams) will be published this fall by University of British Columbia Press.