Broken Promises

Can you imagine having your home, possessions, and freedom taken away? In 1942, the Canadian government forcibly removed Japanese Canadians from British Columbia’s coast. Families boarded trains with only what they could carry, trusting officials who promised to safeguard their belongings. Instead, Japanese Canadians were dispossessed – everything they left behind was stolen or sold.

Broken Promises is the first travelling exhibition to explore the dispossession of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. It illuminates the loss of home and the struggle for justice of one racially marginalized community.

Through photographs, objects, archival documents, and personal accounts, the exhibition traces the experiences of individuals like Kaoru Atagi, whose family ran a successful boatworks in Steveston, BC and Eikichi Kagetsu, a self-made logging entrepreneur and community leader. It explores the resilience of people like Masue Tagashira, a widowed mother who remained in Canada despite hardship, and Keiko Mary Murakami, who recalls an “ideal” childhood before her family was uprooted.

Learn how families lost homes, businesses, and communities, yet continued to build lives in Canada.

The dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s.

This travelling exhibition from the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre is part of Landscapes of Injustice, a seven-year research project led by the University of Victoria in partnership with the institutions listed below. The project investigates the dispossession of nearly 22,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, shedding light on this dark chapter of Canadian history.

Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21
Canadian Immigration History Society
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC)
Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA)
Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC)
Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre (NNMCC)
OAH/JAAS Historians’ Collaborative Committee
Royal British Columbia Museum
Ryerson University
Simon Fraser University
University of Alberta
University of Winnipeg
Urban History Association
Vancouver Japanese Language School & Japanese Hall


Special thanks to the Government of Canada for supporting our efforts in hosting this travelling exhibition.

https://www.kelownamuseums.ca/exhibits/broken-promises/