Seizure of Japanese-Canadian boats resonates today, maritime museum says
VANCOUVER — During the Second World War nearly 1,200 fishing boats owned by Japanese-Canadians were seized by Canadian officials on the B.C. coast — an action that followed Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The seizure is the focus of a new exhibition, “The Lost Fleet,” opening March 24 at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.
The historical event, with its backdrop of racism and the accompanying internment of Japanese-Canadians, has a contemporary resonance, the museum says.
Planning for the show took place during the rising crisis in Syria, when “discussions of an influx of non-white immigrants bore a strong resemblance to the rhetoric used when speaking about the Japanese and other Asian immigrants in the 20th century prior to WWII,” the museum says.