Impounded fishing boats in Vancouver harbour, 1942.
These fishing boats were impounded during the panic following Pearl Harbor; the war allowed anti-Japanese whites to do all that their anti-Oriental comrades of previous decades had been trying to do. One Japanese-Canadian journalist recalled his feelings at the time of Pearl Harbor. "December 7, 1941 is an unforgettable date for Canadians like me", he wrote. "As those first static-laden radio reports told about the attack..., we knew we were in for it." Those classified as security risks were rounded up immediately and interned. Not only fishing boats, but firearms, cameras, and radios were confiscated, and Japanese-language schools and newspapers forced to close. Japanese-Canadians braced themselves for the worst but continued to hope cooler heads would prevail.
