Landscapes of Injustice

Landscapes of Injustice

Some of these images can also be viewed on the BC Archives website. Here you may find more context for the image and any original captions and descriptions. Click on the archives website link then search for the photograph’s catalogue number. Remember to put image numbers within quotation marks. For example, “B-08868”.

http://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/

The Early Years

Alt text: A man posing next to a large logging truck in front of a forest.
Several boats docked at the Steveston harbour. Two men stand near the boats to dry their fishing nets.
A Japanese style teahouse and seating areas decorated with paper lanterns. The Tea Garden is surrounded by forest.
Three girls and one boy stand in the Japanese Gardens and look at the plant display. There are outdoor seating areas and trees in the background.
Two photographs of soldiers at Sidney Camp. One soldier stands in front of the outdoor dining hall with his rifle and the second Japanese soldier stands in front of the canvas tent.
A three-column table shows the year and number of Chinese and Japanese immigrants that were naturalized. Dated August 29, 1901 by the Attorney General.
Eleven students and two teachers pose for a school photo outside the Ucluelet East School. The students are a mixed ethnic group.
Alt text: Six Japanese Canadian miners stand in front of the mine with shovels and a wheelbarrow.

 

Scroll Petition

Some of the original archival captions in this gallery included the term ‘oriental’. Oriental literally means “of the east”, but it has long been used as a derogatory and racist term for anyone of Asian descent, lumping together people of diverse backgrounds and cultures into one imperialist, colonialist category. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, government organizations used this term as part of a system of legalized discrimination.

A large scroll wrapped in tissue paper is in a box.
The scroll is partially rolled out on a gray foam.
A typed letter is attached to the beginning of the scroll. Above the letter, the number of individuals that signed the petition (1,487) is handwritten in red.
18 individuals’ signatures are in the image. The note reads: “With exception those Japanese who served in His Majesty’s armed forces.”
The scroll is rolled out on a long table. Five adults stand at the end of the table.

Internment and Dispossession

A photograph of a series of fishing boats tied in flotillas at Annieville dike.
A typed letter to the Nisei from the Nisei Mass Evacuation Group, dated April 17, 1942.
A large school building in the middle of a camp, surrounded by several houses and mountains
Thirty-five students and teachers stand outside for a group photo. It is a snowy winter scene.
Kindergarten students hold their ribbons around the maypole. Many adults and children gather to watch.
An internment camp showing rows of houses in close proximity. The camp is surrounded by farmland and mountains.

 

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