I recently read an article in The Japan Times titled “Canadian Garden of Unity and Reconciliation“. On its face it is a touching story of the dedication of a garden built on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada (my home province). Rumiko Kanesaka, a Japanese national, married a Canadian and moved with him back to Canada in 1994. They settled on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia and heard stories about a thriving community of Japanese that had existed prior to WWII. She then discovered that the 77 Japanese residents of Salt Spring Island had faced extreme intolerance and ultimately internment, ordered by the Canadian government. One of these people was Mary Murakami Kitagawa who was a speaker at the April 2006 Japan Garden Society meeting (group behind the garden discussed in the article).

Having grown up in British Columbia, the internment of the Japanese was not something that I recall having heard about in school and I wanted to learn more. Mary Murakami Kitagawa and the other 76 Japanese residents of Salt Spring Island became part of a group of 20,881 people, 13,309 who were Canadian citizens by birth, that were interred during the war years. Here are the highlights of her story:

In February 1942 any person of Japanese origin were ordered into ‘protected areas’ with only a single suitcase. The protected area that the Murakami’s were taken to was a renovated horse barn where troughs were used for toilets and straw for mattress. They went there without their father; he was sent to a labor camp that helped build the Trans Canada Highway.

Two weeks later they were sent to the interior of British Columbia and approximately two months later they were told that they could reunite with their father if they moved to Alberta to work on the sugar beet farms. They relocated and at some point they were sent back to British Columbia.

They then heard of Order in Council 469, dated January 1943, which allowed for the liquidation of all property which had been in protective custody. This included the families property on Salt Spring Island.

In March 1945 the family received an order to leave British Columbia for good or be ‘repatriated’ back to Japan. Repatriated is the word that Mary Murakami Kitagawa takes issue with since she was born in Canada and rephrased it to deported. On May 2, 1947 a ship set sail for war devastated Japan with 3,964 Japanese Canadians on board for ‘repatriation’. The Murakami’s chose to move back to Alberta and opened a restaurant.

In April 1949, Japanese Canadians regained the right to live anywhere in Canada.

In 1954 the Murakami’s finally saved enough money to move back to Salt Spring Island. They came back, purchased a home and continued to purchase land over the years but never the land that they owned prior to the war.

Forty years after the end of the war the Canadian Government awarded $21,000 CDN dollars, a pittance, to each individual directly wronged.

Mary’s touching and informative first hand video account of the internment and the family’s experiences through 1997 can be found on The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Digital Archives Website. Many other related videos can also be found there.

Two women of Japanese ancestry, born thousands of miles apart, Rumiko Kanesaka and Mary Murakami Kitagawa, both ended up on Salt Spring Island by choice. One of them took a longer and much harder road to get there but they both understand the concept of tolerance and understanding and helped to bring the Garden of Unity and Reconciliation into being as members of the Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island.

How inspiring.

Sources:

“Canadian Garden of Unity and Reconciliation“. The Japan Times. Published January 19, 2008.
“Relocation to Redress: The Internment of the Japanese Canadians “. The CBC Digital Archives Website. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Last updated: 29 Nov. 2006. Various video clips and articles on the subject.
“Japanese Internment - British Columbia wages war against Japanese Canadians“. The CBC Digital Archives Website. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Last updated: 29 Nov. 2006.
“Japanese Interment: Banished and Beyond Tears” . The Canadian Encyclopedia.