Submitted by Kenna Barradell Victoria BC
I was happy to hear about this project this morning on CBC. When I was very young, my grandmother shared stories about her early married life in Port Alice and the joyful times spent with the Japanese community there. She was very angry at our government for tearing the Japanese out of the community and then later, never making any compensation to them. She had many pictures of her in parades dressed-up in a kimono on a Japanese float with her friends. My cousin has those pictures now. I also heard stories from people years ago about how friends of a Japanese family there offered to buy their property from the government and return it to them after the war. The friends of the Japanese family never returned the property, but rather, built a substantial business on the land which formed the centre of the community of Ganges. I hope these stories are told and remain as a well documented history for future generations who will then have a better understanding of how Canadians behaved under duress. I had a Japanese student live with me for 2 years. She was totally unaware of the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the 2nd world war until she visited this country. I would hate to think our young people would travel to Japan and be unaware of our behaviour towards them during those years.