Traces of an Imperial Japanese Imaginary: Positioning the Japanese & Okinawan Settlements of Southern Alberta, Canada, 1910s-1930s

Abstract

This article develops a case study of two settlements of Japanese colonists—one ethnically Japanese, and one Okinawan—in the southern region of the Canadian province of Alberta between the 1910s and 1930s. It explores these communities’ aims and institutional structures to propose that these shaped membership in the trans-Pacific imperial Japanese imaginary, one that—in the navigation of dual Japanese and British Dominion imperial loyalties—sought to promote Japanese racial progress and cultivate the Japanese identity of future generations. It adds to scholarship on imperial Japan’s projection into North America through its diaspora. Highlighting southern Alberta’s Japanese communities, a distinctive opportunity is opened to view communities that sat beyond the frontier edges of Japan’s imperial projection and explore the traces of the imperial Japanese imaginary that animated it.