(Photo courtesy of UBC Archives)

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VANCOUVER (CUP) — After much hesitation and public criticism, the University of British Columbia has decided to give interned Japanese-Canadian students honourary degrees — a decision which Mits Sumiya says gives him closure on a dark incident from 70 years ago.

“With the presentation of this honourary degree, it feels like UBC has opened their arms and said, ‘You are part of our alumni, you’re welcome, come on in,’” said Sumiya, who was interned at 18 and not allowed to return to his studies at UBC. “It’s a great feeling of belonging.”

The university senate decided to present 76 Japanese-Canadian former UBC students, including Sumiya, with the degrees to recognize those who were interned and unable to complete their studies at the institution during WWII. This follows a course of action that many other universities in North America have already taken.

After hearing about similar cases at other universities, Mary Kitagawa of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Students Association made the degrees a priority for their Human Rights Committee for the past three years.

“It’s been a long struggle. It’s been more or less trying to educate people in power to understand the issue and it’s taken this long,” said Kitagawa.

Student senator Sean Heisler said the degrees are part of a three-pronged approach, which includes educational initiatives. Kitagawa said this component of the senate’s decision is crucial.

“That’s a very important component because I find a lot of people in Canada do not know that such a horrible event happened … It’s a lesson of injustice and when democracy broke down and something I feel everyone should know.”

Associate history professor Henry Yu is one of several faculty members and students who are proposing a minor in Asian-Canadian studies. The program would include existing classes on Asian-Canadian history and literature and two new classes.

“One [class] would be a broad introduction, multi-disciplinary, drawing on the strengths of faculty and students from many different departments,” said Yu. “The other would ... really be about community-based research.”

UBC’s libraries also plan to digitize parts of their Japanese-Canadian collections.

Yu said that despite the negative publicity UBC received as a result of their hesitation in giving out the degrees, it ultimately helped the university to engage with the community.

“To me, there’s a lot of ways in which — as dark as an event it was 70 years ago — our marking it now gives us a chance to actually do things in a way that’s going to make the university better and our relationships with Vancouver better.”

But according to Kitagawa, her work is not quite over.

Heisler said said rather than an honourary baccalaureate or doctorate, the senate will be creating a new title of honourary degree. “It’s not taking the form of an honourary doctorate or an honourary baccalaureate, because this situation doesn’t fit into either of those two categories,” he said. “It’s not being given for eminence in a field, as honourary degrees typically are.”

The exact title has not been decided yet for the newly-created honour, but Kitagawa said she’s going to keep pushing for a baccalaureate.

“I did request that they receive an honourary baccalaureate degree because any other name of a degree other than that would to me indicate a second-rate degree,” she said.

Sumiya was also uncertain about the new title of the degree. But he said that he has always considered himself a UBC student, and an honourary degree would mean that UBC was finally acknowledging him as one too.

“There was always the feeling that was my home, but it never really felt as welcoming as it does now,” he said.

“I certainly hope that what they decide will include that feeling.”

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