History
History
Abstract
This paper uses a protest letter written by Toyo Takahashi to the Prime Minister to understand the dispossession of Japanese Canadians in Victoria, British Columbia in the 1940s. Our historical analysis draws from legal geography and property theory and concludes with a discussion of contemporary commemoration.
Takahashi’s letter won her home special consideration from government officials, who followed her instructions in key respects. As such, we ask: Why did the state officials take special care when they forcibly sold the Takahashi property? To understand this specialized treatment, we place the Takahashi family and property in several historical contexts. The first is of Victoria and Victoria’s Japanese Canadian population, where we see the family’s ‘visibility’ within the city, as the family participated in local tourism and charities through their esteemed garden. Further, we examine how Takahashi’s argumentation resonated with local and national values and conditions of community membership. As we delve into the Takahashi case, we hope to contribute an understanding of how conceptions of property ownership and community membership shaped local processes of dispossession. We end our analysis with a discussion of the translation of these stories into public history and their contemporary reception within a museum exhibit and a local commemoration campaign.
This paper will contribute to understandings of Victoria in the early 20th century, conceptions of ‘proper’ property ownership, and Canadian cultures and practices of public history and commemoration.
Yasmin Amaratunga Railton, Kaitlin Findlay, and Trevor Wideman