Citizens, 2nd Class

The Dominion's 24,000 Japanese had Ottawa puzzled. What to do with them?

After Pearl Harbor the Government cleared all Japanese, both Canadian and foreign-born, out of the Pacific Coast area, resettled them in the interior of British Columbia and five other provinces. The policy was contradictory: the provinces were told that the move was temporary; British Columbia was assured that the Japs would be permanently dispersed. The Government conducted a survey among the resettled Japs, gave each a clear-cut choice: stay or go to Japan. More than 10,000 elected to go.

This week, as Ottawa waited for permission from Douglas MacArthur to ship the 10,000-plus to Japan, complications were coming fast. In the Tashme (B.C.) repatriation camp, 70% of the Japs had changed their minds; now they want to stay in Canada. In Montreal, other prospective repats asked to withdraw their requests to leave; Japan no longer seemed a good place to live.

Meanwhile, the hosts of the resettled were kicking up a fuss. From Alberta came a reminder to Ottawa that its Japs were temporary residents. The Union of British Columbia Municipalities demanded that every one of the Japs be repatriated to Japan.

"Away. . . ." Government policy is to treat Japs already in Canada as human beings but to ban all further immigration. But not all Canadians subscribe to this policy. In the House of Commons Chester McLure, Conservative from Prince Edward Island, stood up and intemperately ranted: "Away with those human rats. God forbid that our nation should ever again allow one of them to set foot on Canada's soil." One Government official angrily cried that he would prefer, personally, "to throw out every god damned one of them," regardless of citizenship. No Government, of course, would ever allow such a thing to happen.

In the center of the verbal whirlwind, Canada's second-class citizens (most of the Japs, like the Canadian Chinese and Hindus in British Columbia, cannot vote) watched in bewilderment man's inhumanity to man. Said Tokyo Morikawa, 30, Canadian-born: "The law regards you as a Canadian but you are treated as an alien."

Morikawa had chummed with Occidentals in school days, but as they grew older "the creek between us grew wider." He was moved from his small fruit farm in British Columbia in 1942, corralled with other Japs in Winnipeg's old Immigration Hall. There they waited two weeks "like cattle at an auction" as farmers looked them over for work on sugar-beet farms. He farmed for 18 months, then got a job as a tinsmith. He sums up his life in Canada: "They tell us we don't assimilate. When we make friends with Occidentals and try to get along they tell us we are crowding in."

"To Teach Those Guys. . . ." His mother has spent 40 of her 70 years in Canada, speaks little English, has few friends. She is homesick. He and his wife will go with her to Japan. There, he avers: "I'm going to teach those guys some democracy. I don't think I'll be welcome."

Others, who want to stay in Canada, fear they will never be welcome again. Mrs. K. Matsuda, 35, born in the Dominion, is married to a Jap national. She has been resettled in Winnipeg with her two children, Takumi, 3, and Atsushi, 6. Sadly she says: "People say things that hurt your feelings. They tell me we don't believe in God. If we did, the Japs couldn't . . . [commit atrocities] to Canadian men." Said she last week: "I don't know what they will do with us."

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