Landscapes of Injustice: A New Perspective on the Internment and Dispossession of Japanese Canadians

Product Description



In 1942, the Canadian government forced more than 21,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes in British Columbia. They were told to bring only one suitcase each and officials vowed to protect the rest. Instead, Japanese Canadians were dispossessed, all their belongings either stolen or sold. The definitive statement of a major national research partnership, Landscapes of Injustice reinterprets the internment of Japanese Canadians by focusing on the deliberate and permanent destruction of home through the act of dispossession. All forms of property were taken. Families lost heirlooms and everyday possessions. They lost decades of investment and labour. They lost opportunities, neighbourhoods, and communities; they lost retirements, livelihoods, and educations. When Japanese Canadians were finally released from internment in 1949, they had no homes to return to. Asking why and how these events came to pass and charting Japanese Canadians' diverse responses, this book details the implications and legacies of injustice perpetrated under the cover of national security. In Landscapes of Injustice the diverse descendants of dispossession work together to understand what happened. They find that dispossession is not a chapter that closes or a period that neatly ends. It leaves enduring legacies of benefit and harm, shame and silence, and resilience and activism.



Review



"This book is a remarkable and comprehensive addition to studies on Canadian history. …. The book is particularly timely and urgent [as] millions of people are currently being displaced, and 'the politics of security, migration, and race [are] perpetually entwined.' The book addresses hard questions about how states and citizens can protect human rights during times of national insecurity, and what is at stake when they fail to do so." Journal of Canadian History




"Landscapes of Injustice is a particularly impressive and unprecedented study ... [The authors] have brought a fresh take to the wartime history of Japanese Canadians, and their careful research will help convince readers of the lasting implications of th




"Well written, clearly and effectively conceived and argued throughout, and intensely moving at times, Landscapes of Injustice is a significant book that both sheds light on the processes of dispossession and racial injustice and demonstrates the utility




"The Japanese Canadian community owes a large debt to Jordan Stanger-Ross and the Landscapes of Injustice collective for uncovering new facts about the role that the legal system, politicians and widespread anti Japanese-Canadian racism played in our hist




"This is a powerful book, marking a materialist turn in reflection on the internment of Japanese Canadians. The research collective pursues questions which, for all their focus on the details of asset liquidation -- of properties, footholds, intergenerati



Book Description


A major reinterpretation of the internment of Japanese Canadians.


About the Author



Jordan Stanger-Ross, professor of history and the project director of Landscapes of Injustice at the University of Victoria, is co-editor of Witness to Loss: Race, Culpability, and Memory in the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians.