japantown the consequences of internment
urbanism | wwii internments vancouver by tanya southcott
internment loss racism community urban decay
Once the heart of British Columbia’s Japanese Canadian community and a thriving cultural and economic district, Vancouver’s Japantown is now more commonly recognised among the country’s poorest neighbourhoods, the infamous Downtown Eastside. While the district’s high incidence of poverty, drug use, sex trade and crime stems from a continuous process of urban decay, the disappearance of Little Tokyo as it was also called, references a singular point in history – the Japanese Internment during the Second World War. The origins of the neighbourhood date from the late 19th century when Vancouver was no more than a small group of residential buildings servicing the workers of the Hastings Saw Mill on the south shore of Burrard Inlet. Japanese immigrants transformed the area, bringing to it a commercial focus with the introduction of mixed-use buildings with family businesses at street level and boarding houses above. On the eve of WWII, Japanese Canadians were the principal property owners along Powell Street. They had turned Powell into a significant business centre and the cultural and economic focus for the Japanese community. Japantown had become an area of distinct Japanese ethnicity, with a strong sense of identity and pride. After the war and the dissolution of the War Measures Act, few Japanese Canadians were able, or encouraged, to return to Vancouver’s Japantown. Inspired by nostalgia for an earlier time, those who did return found few traces of their past life in the buildings of Powell Street. What remains of Japantown today is valued as the place to remember the forced removal and dispersal of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, their loss of property and community.
475 Alexander Street, Japanese Hall, 1928 The only property returned to the Japanese following Internment, the continuation of the Japanese Language School chronicles the history of Japantown.
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Powell streetscape Powell Street was the focus of commercial and social life of Japantown.
60 On Site review 22: WAR
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