between the World Wars

The years between 1918 and 1939 were ones of escalating animosity towards Japanese in Canada. The largest populations of Japanese Canadians were in British Columbia.

Politicians in the province restricted immigration and access to work, basic human rights, and entry into regular society. Japanese formed their own communities, such as the Powell Street area of Vancouver and Steveston that included Japanese churches, newspapers, stores, and language schools.

Asians (Japanese, Chinese, South Asians) and Indigenous were not allowed to vote.

They faced increasingly loud and hostile rhetoric from politicians in the years leading up to the Second World War. The actions of Japan, a country which many Japanese Canadians had never set foot in, were used to justify the treatment of the entire community that culminated in the nightmare years of the internment and its aftermath.