Developing an Anti-Racism Methodology: Considering Japanese and White Canadian Fishing Family Relations in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Nanaimo, British Columbia, on the east coast of Canada's Vancouver Island, was one of the places where Japanese Canadians settled during the twentieth century. In 2018, I published an article in the Canadian Geographer titled, "An anti-racism methodology: The Native Sons and Daughters and racism against Asians in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada", with the goal of using my family's involvement in organizations associated with racism against Asian Canadians to modestly contribute to developing an anti-racism methodology. More recently, I have reconnected with other relatives (small-scale fishermen) who developed close relationships with Japanese Canadian fishing families, both before and after the 1940s. This article considers one Japanese Canadian family in Nanaimo before World War II, during "internment", and after the war in Japan and then in Canada upon their return to their "homeland" in the 1950s and 1960s. I am particularly interested in everyday acts of friendship, particularly during tense periods, as it is important to not only reveal past injustices, but also to recognize and better understand cases when white people treated Japanese Canadians with respect, and also advocated for them when such actions were not fashionable. This sort of non-racist behaviour can constitute part of an anti-Asian racism methodology. This article also has implications for thinking about present-day immigration and deportation politics.