Adams, Constitutional Stories: Japanese Canadians and the Constitution of Canada

Forthcoming in Australasian Canadian Studies, Eric Adams, "Constitutional Stories: Japanese Canadians and the Constitution of Canada" on SSRN  h/t Legal History Blog

Constitutions, and the law and culture they generate, constitute in the broad, diverse, and conflicting stories we tell about places, peoples, and nation states. Significant constitutional anniversaries have always marked an occasion for creating and challenging constitutional stories. The 150th anniversary of Confederation offers an opportunity to reflect on the stories that Canadian constitutional history has to contribute to the country’s broader constitutional narrative and self-understanding. In particular, I explore how significant moments in the constitutional history of Japanese Canadians reveal the relationship between constitutional failure and meaningful moments of constitutional resistance and change. In doing so, we see the capacity of constitutional history, often abandoned by scholars for the more immediate imperatives of contemporary constitutional concerns, as integral to a full understanding of Canadian constitutional law, culture, and politics.