Protest Letters

Japanese Canadians objected to the forced sale of all of their property by writing thousands of letters to federal officials between 1941 – 1951. These letters are scattered across more than 250,000 pages of state records. In 1943 Frank Shears, Vancouver Office of the Custodian, created a file titled “Protests Received Regarding Sale of Vancouver Property” which contain the 300 letters presented here. The full record of Japanese Canadians’ correspondence and the Office of the Custodian’s management of their property can be found in the Landscapes of Injustice research database.

Transcript

[Atmospheric piano music]

[In a color photo, a young man wears a 1940’s fedora, blue-ish grey shirt and suspenders. A woman to the right wears her dark hair tied up in a bun, wearing a period tan dress with a striped collar. In their upheld hands, both hold several letters. Then, standing beside the woman in an old shipyards building, the young man speaks:]

Between 1941 and 1951, Japanese Canadians wrote thousands of letters to federal officials in protest of the forced sale of their property. These letters were scattered across over 250,000 pages of government records.

[The young woman, standing to the right, speaks:]

In 1943, in the Vancouver Office of the Custodian created a file titled: “Protests Received Regarding Sale of Vancouver Property”, which contain the letters presented here. Come and check them out.

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