Liberty is a fundamental marker of citizenship. During World War II, for Japanese Canadians in prisoner-of-war camps the stripping of their liberty was a sure sign of their loss of citizenship. However, for others the distinction between liberty and incarceration was not as clear.  Despite the fact that many Japanese Canadians enjoyed the appearance of relative freedom during World War II, for many citizenship was uncertain and liberty was tenuous at best.

Ambivalence infused discussions surrounding the relocation of Japanese Canadians to Alberta and Manitoba. This paper highlights the multiple and diverse processes of incarceration that took place amidst this ambivalence.  I begin with Foucault’s (1995) definition of the ‘carceral’ as an incorporation of “institutions of supervision or constraint, of discreet surveillance and insistent coercion” (299).  Using newspaper articles from a one year period, I apply this definition to Japanese Canadian ‘relocation’ to Alberta and Manitoba as part of the government sponsored Sugar Beet Programme. This program offers a unique perspective, as it was framed as a ‘self-support’ program, thus implying a greater range of freedoms. However, despite illusions of freedom, I argue that what made these sites carceral was a combination of state and civic mediations.