The Long, Wet Summer of 1942: The Ontario Farm Service Force, Small-Town Ontario and the Nisei

ABSTRACT/RESUME This paper explores how the notion of the is constructed during wartime by analyzing the dispersal of Canada's west coast Japanese-Canadian population to points further east, and their employment with the Ontario Farm Service Force as farm labourers in several southwestern Ontario towns and villages in 1942. The core of the Japanese-Canadian experience rests in their shameful treatment during WWII at the hands of a government that was supposedly committed to the ideals of democracy. While studies focusing on the internment are numerous, there has been little research about the Japanese Canadians who relocated to other parts of Canada. Additionally, most of the scholarly and non-scholarly information has centred on the internment as a west coast phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new chapter into the wartime internment and dispersal of thousands of Japanese Canadians by examining the role of the Ontario Farm Service Force in the employment of male, Japanese-Canadian labour in the wartime sugar beet economy in southwestern Ontario, and the impact that this infusion of aliens had on small-town Ontario populations. Cet article explore la maniere dont la notion de 'l'autre' est construite en temps de guerre en analysant la dispersion de la population japonaise-canadienne de la cote ouest du Canada vers l'est et leur emploi avec le Ontario Farm Service Force en tant que travailleurs agricoles dans plusieurs villes et villages du sud-ouest de l'Ontario en 1942. Le noyau de l'experience Japonaise-Canadienne est leur traitement honteux pendant la deuxieme guerre mondiale par un gouvernement censement investi des ideaux de la democratie. Tandis que de nombreuses etudes se concentrent sur l'internement, il y a eu peu de recherches au sujet des Canadiens-Japonais qui se sont deplaces vers d'autres regions du Canada. De plus, la majorite de l'information savante et non-savante s'est concentree sur l'internement comme phenomene de la cote ouest. Le but de cet article est de presenter un nouveau chapitre sur l'internement en temps de guerre et la dispersion des milliers de Canadiens-Japonais en examinant le role du Ontario Farm Service Force dans l'emploi des hommes Canadiens-Japonais dans l'economie de betterave a sucre en temps de guerre dans le sud-ouest de l'Ontario et l'impact que cette infusion 'd'etrangers' a eu sur les populations des villages en Ontario. INTRODUCTION World War II affected all Canadians, but the war had a different meaning for Japanese Canadians living on the west coast of British Columbia, the majority of whom were Canadian born. Their very presence raised a cry of alarm among a population already prone to racial intolerance. The Canadian government, with the full co-operation of the British Columbia provincial government, responded to the popular outcry by evicting these citizens to inland British Columbia and to points further east. This unfortunate and disgraceful period in Canadian history did not end in British Columbia. Many Japanese-Canadian men volunteered for work in lumber and mining camps in northern Ontario, or for work on farms in Alberta, Manitoba, and southern Ontario. The history of the first-generation, Japanese-Canadian men (Nisei) (1) who were employed with the Ontario Farm Service Force (OFSF) during 1942 constituted only a footnote in Canadian history. The purpose of this article is to introduce a new element to the history of the wartime internment (2) and dispersal of thousands of Canadians of Japanese ancestry by examining the OFSF and its employment of Japanese-Canadian labour in several southwestern Ontario towns and villages in 1942. The chosen sites were: Centralia, Chatham, Dover Centre, Dresden, Essex, Glencoe, Petrolia, Valetta, and Wallaceburg (see Map 1). (3) Previous scholarship focused almost entirely on internment as a west coast phenomenon. Using a case study approach based on federal and provincial archival documents and interviews, this paper demonstrates that no single regional explanation can be offered, for even with no prior experience with Asians, southwestern Ontarians harboured many of the same negative sentiments as the residents of Canada's west coast who had been in contact with Asians since the late nineteenth century. …

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