Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution

Eric Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross, Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution, published by the University of British Columbia Press. Eric Adams is Professor of Law at the University of Alberta, Jordan Stanger-Ross is Professor of History at the University of Victoria. After the Second World War ended, Canada planned to banish over 10,000 Canadians of Japanese descent to Japan. This book is the story of the making of the laws of exile, the legal system that made it possible, and the resilience and resistance of people facing its injustice. The book follows the lives of Japanese Canadians, forced from their homes, stripped of their livelihoods and possessions, and pressured to accept exile to a country devastated by war. We confront the people behind these draconian measures, politicians and civil servants devising and implementing racist orders while grappling with the legal constraints imposed on state power. The book concludes with the exile in court. In hearings before the Supreme Court of Canada and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom, lawyers and judges contemplated the meaning of citizenship, race, and rights under the wartime constitution and in the postwar world. A betrayal of justice in a moment of global conflict, sharpened borders, and racist suspicion, the exile of Japanese Canadians remains a vital story for today.