Every spring, parks across Toronto turn white and pink with cherry blossoms. The Sakura trees are a gift from Japan — and a reminder of one of the most disturbing chapters in Canadian history. Many Japanese Canadians on the west coast had been forced into internment camps or deported back to Japan during WWII. Those who weren’t deported were forced to flee the west coast and many ended up in Toronto. They encountered racism here too but also found allies in their fight for their rights. The Cooperative Committee on Japanese-Canadians lobbied for their rights and on April 1, 1959, the Japanese ambassador to Canada presented 2000 Japanese Somei-Yoshino Sakurathe on behalf of the citizens of Tokyo, Japan as a gift to the citizens of Toronto for their support of Japanese-Canadian refugees after the Second World War.