In this companion volume to A White Man’s Province and The Oriental Question, Patricia E. Roy examines the climax of antipathy to Asians in Canada: the removal of all Japanese Canadians from the BC coast in 1942. Their free return was not allowed until 1949. Yet the war also brought increased respect for Chinese Canadians; they were enfranchised in 1947 and the federal government softened its ban on Chinese immigration.

The Triumph of Citizenship explains why Canada ignored the rights of Japanese Canadians and placed strict limits on Chinese immigration. In response, Japanese Canadians and their supporters in the human rights movement managed to halt “repatriation” to Japan, and Chinese Canadians successfully lobbied for the same rights as other Canadians to sponsor immigrants. The final triumph of citizenship came in 1967, when immigration regulations were overhauled and the last remnants of discrimination removed.

The Triumph of Citizenship reminds all Canadians of the values and limits of their citizenship; students of political history and of ethnic relations in particular will find this book compelling.