Civilian Assembly Centre

Seventy-seven years ago today, over a two hour period, the Imperial Japanese Army sent bombs, bullets and torpedoes into the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. After that, the United States and Canada responded with a long, tortuous corralling of its ethnic Japanese population, stripping them of their possessions, their homes, separating family members and relocating them to interior towns like Greenwood, B.C. (below). While on the other side of the Pacific, the Imperial Army invaded the Shanghai International Settlement, taking my father and his parents prisoner and interning them at a civilian assembly centre similar to the one J. G. Ballard and his family were sent to at Lunghua (above).