Past Wrongs, Future Choices aims to extend and mobilize knowledge of an instructive twentieth-century history: the racialized uprooting, internment, dispossession, and deportation of civilians of Japanese descent (Nikkei) in allied countries throughout the Americas and the Pacific in the 1940s. Working with partners in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and the United States, our partnership will foster social and political accountability, pushing publics across the world to grapple with the question of what we owe to one another, especially in times of crisis.

The partnership will also produce coordinated exhibitions in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, pairing research with contemporary Nikkei art. We will integrate these separate physical exhibitions in a digital form and contribute to permanent exhibitions telling this history in Canada.

An international archival ‘Spotlight Series’ will draw together global records. Community-based events will provide access and ensure that the digitized record of internment make enduring and profound impacts.

Resources will be developed to allow teachers in Canada and abroad to teach Nikkei wartime experiences as a case of global racism, while illuminating the institutions that are crucial to civics education. Teachers will gain access to these resources and receive training through professional development, public programming, and an intensive field school.