More than 50,000 draft-age American men and women migrated to Canada
during the Vietnam War, the largest political exodus from the United
States since the American Revolution. How are we to understand this
migration three decades later? Was their action simply a marginal,
highly individualized spin-off of the American antiwar movement, or
did it have its own lasting collective meaning? John Hagan, himself a
member of the exodus, searched declassified government files,
consulted previously unopened resistance organization archives and
contemporary oral histories, and interviewed American war resisters
settled in Toronto to learn how they made the momentous decision.
Canadian immigration officials at first blocked the entry of some
resisters; then, under pressure from Canadian church and civil
liberties groups, they fully opened the border, providing these
Americans with the legal opportunity to oppose the Vietnam draft and
military mobilization while beginning new lives in Canada. It was a
turning point for Canada as well, an assertion of sovereignty in its
post–World War II relationship with the United States. Hagan
describes the resisters’ absorption through Toronto’s emerging
American ghetto in the late 1960s. For these Americans, the move was
an intense and transformative experience. While some struggled for a
comprehensive amnesty in the United States, others dedicated their
lives to engagement with social and political issues in Canada. More
than half of the draft and military resisters who fled to Canada
thirty years ago remain there today. Most lead successful lives, have
lost their sense of Americanness, and overwhelmingly identify
themselves as Canadians.
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American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780674273269
Publisert
2021
Utgiver
Harvard University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter