Centre

In 1942, during the Second World War, 22,000 Japanese Canadians were forcibly uprooted, dispossessed, incarcerated/interned, and exiled from the west coast. The forced exile extended until 1949, four years after the end of the war that had been used to support these racist and unjust actions. About 8,000 Japanese Canadians, mostly residing outside of Vancouver, were transported to Hastings Park where they were detained in inhumane conditions for weeks or months before being sent east to internment/incarceration camps, road camps, work camps, and sugar beet farms. Some died in the makeshift hospital at Hastings Park because they were denied access to regular hospitals based on ethnicity. While most were removed from Hastings Park by October 1942 and forced further east, over 100 individuals remained in the makeshift hospital until Spring 1943.

The Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society (JCHPICS) is a registered non-profit organization. Its main goal is to preserve the truths as experienced by Japanese Canadians wrongfully imprisoned in Hastings Park between March 1942 to March 1943. The original community group organized to get signage at Hastings Park and the JCHPICS was formed to plan and receive funds to build the Interpretive Centre.

The PNE has agreed to the Interpretive Centre being located at abandoned cafeteria space at the Livestock Building. JCHPICS has received a planning grant from the BC Heritage 150 Time Immemorial Fund to outreach to the JC community for feedback on the design, programming, and space usage for the Interpretive Centre.

Email JCHPICS2022@gmail.com with questions or to be added to the mailing list so that you can receive our updates.

We would like to display the names of all 8,000 Japanese Canadians who were at Hastings Park in 1942. Records are not always accurate, so please email us at JCHPICS2022@gmail.com with the correct spelling of the names for you and/or your family who were at Hastings Park in 1942.