Book Launch: Challenging Exile

Join the Centre for Constitutional Studies for the launch of Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution by Professors Eric Adams (University of Alberta, Faculty of Law) and Jordan Stranger-Ross (University of Victoria, Department of History). The launch event will feature food, drinks, and a short talk by co-author Professor Adams, as well as comments on the book by Professor Jessica Eisen (University of Alberta, Faculty of Law), Professor Dominique Clément (University of Alberta, Department of Sociology), and Professor Aya Fujiwara (University of Alberta, Department of History, Classics, and Religion).

This is a free event open to all members of the community. It will be held in-person at Peter Lougheed Hall in the City Room on the 5th floor.

Book Abstract: In September 1945, Canada proposed exiling Japanese Canadians to Japan, a country devastated by war. Thousands who had experienced internment and dispossession were now at risk of banishment.

In Challenging Exile, Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross detail the circumstances and personalities behind the exile. They follow the lives of families facing government orders that uprooted them from their homes, stripped them of their livelihoods and possessions, and proposed to exile them from Canada. And they analyze the court case in which lawyers and judges grappled with the meaning of citizenship, race, and rights in times of war and its aftermath.

Unfolding in a context of global conflict, sharpened borders, and racist suspicion, the story told in Challenging Exile has enduring relevance for our own troubled times.

Host or Publisher University of Alberta