Hastings Park Internment Area

Here, we see a large room filled with bunk beds for Japanese Canadian men. Each bunk bed abutted another, looking like a sea of sleeping places. There was no privacy, sanitation would have been hard to control, and disease and sickness would have spread like wildfire. Packing people into this tight space was inhumane. 

This particular camp was in Hastings Park in East Vancouver. The government interned women and children at this camp. Hastings Park was an exhibition centre with many large buildings, including livestock buildings that housed animals. The Japanese Canadian internees were not considered equal humans; they were housed like cattle, fed poorly, and kept in conditions unfit for their well-being. During the internment period, more than 8,000 Japanese Canadians stayed at Hastings Park before being moved to a camp, unable to uphold their family and cultural traditions in such squalid conditions. 

Hastings Park remained open for only a few months, opening in March and closing in September of 1942. Despite the short time it was open, many who lived there left with the horrors they met at Hastings Park. 

Bibliography:

[1] Oikawa, Lorene. “The Story of Hastings Park.” National Association of Japanese Canadians. 2024. https://najc.ca/the-story-of-hastings-park/.