Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution

The untold story of Japanese Canadians facing banishment after the war and the legal battles that challenged notions of citizenship, race, and rights.

In September 1945, the Canadian government proposed exiling Japanese Canadians to a war-ravaged Japan. Thousands who had already endured internment and dispossession now faced the threat of banishment from the country they called home.

In Challenging Exile, Adams and Stanger-Ross, recipients of the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Constitutional Legal History for their work on the uprooting and dispossession of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s, examine the circumstances and personalities behind this controversial policy. Following the experiences of families uprooted from their homes and stripped of their livelihoods and possessions, the authors reveal the human impact of government orders and the broader social and political forces at play. They also analyze the pivotal court case in which lawyers and judges confronted fundamental questions about citizenship, race, and rights during wartime and its aftermath.

Set against a backdrop of global conflict, heightened borders, and widespread racial suspicion, Challenging Exile offers a compelling account of injustice and resilience, highlighting issues that remain deeply relevant in contemporary debates over citizenship, race, and human rights.