Before the Age of the Daonald - Part 16 by Dave Jaffe

    Before the Age of the Donald - Part 16.


        British Columbia has never needed lessons in how to grow white racism. The Japanese immigrants who started coming to B.C. in the late 19th century learned that quickly enough. In 1907 anti-Asian riots swept across Vancouver as white working people tried to trash the Japanese community. Japanese people fought back and routed the white mob.
     Yet in the 1940's the white racists got their revenge. By now in 1942 the Second World War was three years old and Japan, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy were allies in the conflict. Japanese troops swept across East Asia in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. Canadians fought alongside British troops in their defense of Hong Kong but the Japanese soon prevailed.
    Panicked by Japan's victories, many British Columbians insisted that native  Japanese could not be trusted. In June 1942 Canadian police rounded up all Japanese-Canadians in B.C. The Japanese were then herded into makeshift camps in the Kootenays. At war's end, they were not allowed to remain in British Columbia. They were scattered all across Canada or were deported back to Japan.
     The Canadian government sold off all the Japanese property and gave them back virtually nothing in return. It took many of the Japanese still alive in the 1980's to get compensation for their lost property.Nor was the Canadian government above causing more problems for their Japanese subjects even after no more Japanese were left in B.C..
    When the government tried to deport another 10,000 Japanese back to Japan, mainstream Canadians protested and the plan was dropped.
    "By 1946," writes George Woodcock, "a general shift in Canadian politics was taking place." The racist policies of the Nazis, says Woodcock, had made British Columbians and Canadians, "uneasy about their own prejudices and discriminatory policies in the past." Also to make up for its past racist policies, the Canadian government finally gave the right to vote to all Asian Canadians. Later in the 1960's, Ottawa changed its immigration policies and opened its doors once again to immigrants from Asia.
     Once again white racism raised its head and by 2015 many people in Metro Vancouver blamed the Chinese immigrants for sky rocketing housing prices. The B.C. Liberal government heard the outcry and slapped a 15 per cent tax on anyone from outside Canada buying a house in Metro Vancouver.
     This didn't halt anti Asian feelings in B.C. "Racism is really hard to fight," said Joyce a Japanese-Canadian said. "I have felt it often." As this part of my blog shows, Donald Trump can't be blamed for racists in B.C. Yet it would be sad if his insults to Mexicans and Muslims would give white racism even more strength in Canada's most western province.