Okanagan Heritage Museum
Broken Promises
Now open to June 22, 2025
Okanagan Heritage Museum
Can you imagine having your home, possessions, and freedom taken away? In 1942, the Canadian government forcibly removed Japanese Canadians from British Columbia’s coast. Families boarded trains with only what they could carry, trusting officials who promised to safeguard their belongings. Instead, Japanese Canadians were dispossessed – everything they left behind was stolen or sold.
Broken Promises is the first travelling exhibition to explore the dispossession of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. It illuminates the loss of home and the struggle for justice of one racially marginalized community.
Through photographs, objects, archival documents, and personal accounts, the exhibition traces the experiences of individuals like Kaoru Atagi, whose family ran a successful boatworks in Steveston, BC and Eikichi Kagetsu, a self-made logging entrepreneur and community leader. It explores the resilience of people like Masue Tagashira, a widowed mother who remained in Canada despite hardship, and Keiko Mary Murakami, who recalls an “ideal” childhood before her family was uprooted.
Learn how families lost homes, businesses, and communities, yet continued to build lives in Canada.
The dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s.
This travelling exhibition from the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre is part of Landscapes of Injustice, a seven-year research project led by the University of Victoria in partnership with the institutions listed below. The project investigates the dispossession of nearly 22,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, shedding light on this dark chapter of Canadian history.
- Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21
- Canadian Immigration History Society
- Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC)
- Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA)
- Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
- National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC)
- Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre (NNMCC)
- OAH/JAAS Historians’ Collaborative Committee
- Royal British Columbia Museum
- Ryerson University
- Simon Fraser University
- University of Alberta
- University of Winnipeg
- Urban History Association
- Vancouver Japanese Language School & Japanese Hall
Special thanks to the Government of Canada for supporting our efforts in hosting this travelling exhibition.
Hours
| Monday | 10:00am – 5:00pm |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 10:00am – 5:00pm |
| Friday | 10:00am – 5:00pm |
| Saturday | 10:00am – 5:00pm |
| Sunday | 11:00am – 4:00pm |
ADMISSION
Adult - $10
Student/Senior - $8
Youth (5-17) - $7
Family - $25
5 & Under - Free
Every second Sunday of the month - pay-what-you-wish
Self-guided school visits to the OHM
$50 for 10 students, $2 per each additional student. Maximum 30 students.
Those who self-identify as Indigenous visit the Okanagan Heritage Museum free of charge.
