Abstract:
The Internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War was a blatant act of racial-based injustice in Canadian history. In this study, the term "Internment" encompasses all the events that resulted from the abrogation of Japanese Canadian rights of citizenship--mass uprooting from their homes and communities in British Columbia (BC), dispossession, forced relocation to internment camps in interior BC, road camps, and sugar beet farms, followed by forced exile from BC to Japan, or forced migration and assimilation across Canada. The twelve participants in this study are Canadians of Japanese heritage who were born after the Internment and whose parent(s) or grandparent(s) experienced a form of Internment. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we explored intergenerational communication of the Internment experience and the lived experience of growing up in the aftermath of the Internment. The findings revealed alternative responses and outcomes to historical trauma theory. Threaded throughout these stories and responses were prevailing themes reflecting values of gaman and enryo, in addition to resilience and empowerment.
