Redress

Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice

Roy Miki

This passionate and important book—part memoir, part critical examination—explores the Japanese Canadian redress movement of the late 20th century, which sought compensation from the federal government for the internment of citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.

Governor General’s Award-winner Roy Miki applies the concept of “negotiations” to the 20th-century history of Japanese Canadians—a history of mediation with mainstream Canadian institutions in order to achieve fundamental rights. From the moment the first generation (the “issei”) immigrated to Canada, they had to confront, adjust to and attempt to transform a system of laws and policies based on assumptions about race that predetermined the identities of all Japanese Canadian citizens.

The text interweaves the main historical narrative (a gripping story that follows the negotiators all the way to Parliament Hill) with stories from Miki’s own personal and family histories, anecdotes of pivotal events in the redress movement, and documents only available in archival collections. In the process, Redress illuminates the larger issues of race and tolerance in Canada as well as in other nations where “new citizens” seek acceptance.

“Roy Miki has done Canadian history a remarkable service with his poignant, insightful, and brutally honest recounting of the century-long struggle for Japanese Canadian citizenship rights. With a poet’s ear for language, a historian’s microscope for detail, and the type of political savvy that gives shivers to those in power, Miki approaches the story of redress for a community that was forcefully uprooted, interned, and dispersed during and after the Second World War.” —Quill & Quire

Roy Miki was born in Manitoba in 1942 on a sugar beet farm that his parents had been forcibly sent to six months earlier. A third-generation Japanese Canadian, Miki is a key figure in the successful redress movement. An editor, critic and author of the 2002 Governor General’s Award-winning poetry collection Surrender, Miki teaches at Simon Fraser University.