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 completed Phase 1 – a memorial outside of the Interpretive Centre. The memorial has pillars displaying the names of the Japanese Canadians incarcerated at Hastings Park 1942/1943. The names are in alphabetical order. There wasn’t a single list of names that hadn’t been destroyed. We hired a researcher who collected names from various resources including applications for Redress in 1988. We had to make additional corrections such as removing duplicate and married names. We also put out a call for names on social media, and monthly articles in The Bulletin magazine and Nikkei Voice newspaper. We have about 6,000 of the 8,000 names.

We will have a plan to add additional names on a separate pillar(s), and work on fundraising. Donations can be made via e-transfer to jchpics@outlook.com At this time, we are not able to issue tax receipts, but we will acknowledge all donors unless you wish to be anonymous.

Please submit any missing or incorrect names to us using the google doc submission https://forms.gle/KyPKR9wXmXmXFDhC8 This will help us collect the names. We are looking for any missing names of Japanese Canadians who were held at Hastings Park in 1942-1943. Please use the names as they were known at that time. For example, your mother who was a girl in 1942, please use her maiden name not her current married name. Your grandmother who was married at the time, please use her married name. If there are corrections to the names on the pillars and you did not previously report the corrections, please let us know through the same google doc submission. We have a separate spreadsheet with reported missing names and corrections.

We are working on Phase 2 – renovation of the former cafeteria space in the Livestock Building. The space has been cleared out. During the PNE, we held an open house with a sample of what we could have in the Interpretive Centre. President Dan Tokawa put together a temporary exhibit with archival photos and some stories of those who were at Hastings Park in 1942. One story that is particularly memorable is from Mary Ohara. She was a child when she got mumps and was sent to the “dungeon” where she discovered other younger children who were left to fend for themselves. Stories like Mary Ohara’s give us a true sense of what it was like to be a child in the Livestock Building at Hastings Park. You can see our open house photos, updates, and information about events on the @jchastingspark Instagram. We will be working on the renovation of the former staff cafeteria and plan to have a permanent Interpretive Centre by spring 2027.

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