Suspect Properties

Abstract

In 1943, after Japanese Canadians were uprooted from coastal British Columbia, federal officials commenced selling all of their property without consent. This article argues that the dispossession of Japanese-Canadian-owned property has an urban history that has been largely overlooked, as arguments for the dispossession emerged from the Vancouver municipal government, which focused federal attention on the historic Japanese-Canadian neighborhood in the city. Federal officials seized upon the condition of a small number of deteriorating “slum” properties as a justification of wholesale dispossession. An initiative town planners in Vancouver thus helped to motivate the wholesale dispossession of Japanese Canadians.