Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution
In September 1945, 10,572 Canadians of Japanese descent faced exile to Japan. This moment can be understood in the story of three separate rooms, explain Dr. Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross, in their new book, Challenging Exile.
In the first, an office in Ottawa, civil servants decided to banish thousands of people from the country. The second, a wood-panelled courtroom, admitted cloaked lawyers and judges to determine what limits, if any, they would place upon the government in the aftermath of war. In the third room sat Japanese Canadians. At kitchen tables in internment shacks, converted barns, abandoned buildings, and the hundreds of locations to which they were scattered, they made the forced decisions of unfree people. This talk offers a glimpse into these rooms and asks us to consider the historical injustice by which internment in Canada came to an end.
📘 Purchase the Book
Publisher (UBC Press): https://www.ubcpress.ca/challenging-exile
Media & Events Coverage (2025)
This page brings together selected interviews, reviews, and public events related to Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution. We will continue updating this list as new coverage appears.
Podcast
Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History) – October 1, 2025
Donald Wright speaks with Eric Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross about their book, Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution. How did Japanese Canadians navigate the challenges arrayed against them? Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross detail the circumstances and personalities behind the proposed exile. They follow the lives of families facing government orders that forced them from their homes, stripped their livelihoods and possessions, and deprived them of fundamental rights. And they analyze the constitutional framework of the court case in which lawyers and judges grappled with the meaning of citizenship, race, and rights at a time of change in Canadian law and politics. 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. Eric M. Adams is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta and has written widely on constitutional law, legal history, employment law, human rights, and legal education. He lives in Edmonton. Jordan Stanger-Ross is a professor of history at the University of Victoria and is the author of numerous works on the history of migration and race in North America. He lives in Victoria. Together, they were awarded the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Constitutional Legal History for their joint scholarship with the Landscapes of Injustice partnership, examining the uprooting and dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.
TV/ News Segment
NHK World Japan – News Segment –Â December 8, 2025
A Short Segment featuring Challenging Exile
Radio
CBC Radio — Daybreak (Alberta-wide) — December 13, 2025
Interview discussing Challenging Exile and the wartime constitutional framework affecting Japanese Canadians.
Listen: CBC link
CBC Radio — Radio Active (Edmonton) — December 3, 2025
Conversation on the book and the lived experiences of Japanese Canadians during and after the war.
Listen: CBC link
CBC Radio — The Homestretch (Calgary) — December 3, 2025
Interview on Challenging Exile aired on CBC Calgary’s The Homestretch.
Audio not currently available online.
CBC Radio – Daybreak South (with Chris Walker) – November 24, 2025
Topic: The exile of Japanese Canadians after the war, 80 years after it happened.
CBC Radio – On The Island (with Gregor Craigie) – November 21, 2025
Topic: A lesser-known historical footnote that followed the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.
Review
Globe and Mail review (John Ibbitson) – November 14, 2025
Public Event / Panel
Book Panel – November 5, 2025
Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution with Jordan Stanger-Ross, Victor Ramraj, Matt James, Mary Anne Valianatos, and Neilesh Bose.
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