VANCOUVER (CUP) – After much hesitation and public criticism, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has decided to give interned Japanese-Canadian students honorary degrees, a decision which Mits Sumiya says gives him closure on a dark incident from 70 years ago.
“With the presentation of this honorary degree, it feels like UBC has opened their arms and said, ‘You are part of our alumni, you’re welcome, come on in,’“ says Sumiya, who was interned at 18 and not allowed to return to his studies at UBC. “It’s a great feeling of belonging.”
The university senate decided to present 76 Japanese-Canadian former UBC students with the degrees to recognize those who were interned and unable to complete their studies at the institution during WWII. This follows a course of action that many other universities in North America have already taken.
After hearing about similar cases at other universities, Mary Kitagawa of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Students Association made the degrees a priority for their human rights committee for the past three years.
“It’s been a long struggle,” says Kitagawa. “It’s been more or less trying to educate people in power to understand the issue and it’s taken this long.”
UBC student senator Sean Heisler says the degrees are part of a three-pronged approach, which includes educational initiatives. Kitagawa says this component of the senate’s decision is crucial.
“That’s a very important component, because I find a lot of people in Canada do not know that such a horrible event happened,” she says. “It’s a lesson of injustice and when democracy broke down.”
UBC associate history professor Henry Yu is one of several faculty members and students who are proposing a minor in Asian-Canadian studies. The program would include existing classes on Asian-Canadian history and literature and two new classes.
“One [class] would be a broad introduction, multi-disciplinary, drawing on the strengths of faculty and students from many different departments,” says Yu. “The other would really be about community-based research.”
UBC’s libraries also plan to digitize parts of their Japanese-Canadian collections.
Yu says that despite the negative publicity UBC received as a result of their hesitation in giving out the degrees, it ultimately helped the university to engage with the community.
“As dark as an event it was 70 years ago, our marking it now gives us a chance to do things in a way that’s going to make the university better,” says Yu, “and our relationships with Vancouver better.”