# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
George Takei on Life Inside a Japanese Internment Camp During WWII

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The children's books below tell the tragic story of the Japanese internment camps that were set up during World War II to incarcerate Americans of Japanese ancestry. In total, 10 internment camps were created throughout Western states, and more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly There are a few additional stories that we are in the process of reviewing to see if they should be added to this page. Thank you to users of this site for bringing these books to our attention! by Beverly Platt; illustrated by Shula Klinger by Kathryn Fitzmaurice by Winifred Conkling

removed from their homes and resettled in the poor living conditions of the camps. When I was in school, I don't remember learning about the Internment Camps. Now, most teachers devote a portion of their WW2 units to teaching about this sad chapter in our nation's history.

Most of the books listed below are about Japanese internment camps. However, the last book is about the little-known internment of the Aleutian people of Alaska during World War II.

Have fun browsing, and please share any recommendations you have.

NOTE: This book is not about Japanese internment camps but we are including it on this list because it is about the similiar internment of Aleutian native peoples in Alaska during WW2.

More on the Japanese internment camps:

(1)
Best Friends Forever: A World War II Scrapbook
(2) Diamond in the Desert
(3) Sylvia and Aki

(4) Children of the Relocation Camps by Catherine Welch (an NCSS Woodson Honor Book for 2001)

Our review of these books will be added to this page soon. In the meantime, learn more here.

To see other books:GO FROM -- Japanese Internment Camps --TO-- all American History book lists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Japanese Internment Camps - Great Kids Books on This Tragic Event

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The children's books below tell the tragic story of the Japanese internment camps that were set up during World War II to incarcerate Americans of Japanese ancestry. In total, 10 internment camps were created throughout Western states, and more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly There are a few additional stories that we are in the process of reviewing to see if they should be added to this page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What does an American look like? Who is welcome in this country? What is every American's duty in the face of racist government action?

Alphawood Gallery has partnered with the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) to produce the Gallery's first original exhibition, Then They Came for M e: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties. This exhibition examines a dark episode in U.S. history when, in the name of national security, the government incarcerated 120,000 citizens and legal residents during World War II without due process or other constitutional protections to which they were entitled. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, set in motion the forced removal and imprisonment of all people of Japanese ancestry living on or near the West Coast. During this 75 th anniversary year of the executive order, we look back at this shameful past to learn lessons for our present and future in the face of new challenges encouraged by fearmongering and racism at the highest levels of government.

Then They Came for Me presents this historical event from multiple perspectives. Drawing upon the powerful images culled from the book Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II by Chicago-based photo historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, the exhibition features works by renowned American photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and others documenting the eviction of Japanese Americans from their homes and their subsequent lives in incarceration camps. These photographers were hired by the U.S. Government's War Relocation Authority (WRA) to record the "evacuation" and "internment" process. In addition to the WRA photographers, the exhibition presents views of the incarceration by Japanese American artists Toyo Miyatake and Miné Okubo. A significant group of images by Miyatake, a professional photographer who was incarcerated at the Manzanar Relocation Center, reveal details of the camps prohibited in WRA photography such as barbed wire and guard towers, and are shown alongside his illuminating images of the imprisoned residents' daily lives. And pages from Miné Okubo's remarkable illustrated memoir Citizen 13660 document her own incarceration experience with poignant drawings and forthright text.

The JASC and a number of collectors from the Chicago area have generously lent art, objects, documents and other historical materials that provide glimpses into the personal experiences of those who were incarcerated. Highlights include ID cards and tags, anti-Japanese propaganda, suitcases, diaries, handmade furniture, wood carvings and other works of art, high school yearbooks and newsletters produced by camp inmates, military accoutrements, indefinite leave clearances, materials related to resettlement in Chicago and eventual redress and reparation. Specially compiled video testimonies by former inmates, their family members and community leaders are installed throughout the exhibition. And the new documentary film And Then They Came for Us by Abby Ginzberg and Ken Schneider, screened daily, makes explicit connections between the Japanese American incarceration story and current concerns with regard to the treatment of Muslims and Muslim Americans.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What does an American look like? Who is welcome in this country? What is every American's duty in the face of racist government action? Alphawood Gallery has partnered with the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) to produce the Gallery's first original exhibition, Then They Came for M e : Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
During WWII, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 in response to prejudiced fears that Japanese Americans were spies.
I'm probably one of a few children's book blogger whose family was forced into internment camps during WWII for being Japanese American. Let me tell you my family's story:

My mother was born in San Francisco's Japantown. After school every day, she would go, on roller skates, from her high school to Japanese school to study the language and arts like ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement, stopping on the way in a Japanese convenience store for a snack like senbei, Japanese rice crackers.

She, like all Japanese Americans (and the Chinese who immigrated before them in large numbers), were subject to racism which included special laws meant to limit their economic success. For example, Japanese Americans like herself, were not allowed to work for the government as civil servants. Even if she aced the government civil service exam, she would never be hired. Japanese immigrants were, by law, not allowed to own property in the United States, even if they could afford to buy a home for themselves and their family. The Asian Exclusion Act, part of the Immigration Act of 1924, completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. from Historian

When soldiers showed up on her doorstep, giving her family just two days to pack up one suitcase each, leaving all their belongings behind; this didn't happen overnight. A whole series of events happened leading up to this first.
Dr. Seuss was a racist.
Japanese Americans were dehumanized. In the media and through entertainment like movies, musicals, and books, Asians were dehumanized. Dr. Seuss played his part in creating popular political cartoons against the Asian American population. Propaganda to sway the American people into indifference played a huge role. Just like in Nazi Germany.

Eliminating Japanese Americans competitors was the real reason for Internment camps. Japanese Americans were resented for their work ethic and what little economics success they achieved. Make no mistake, rounding up Japanese Americans and packing them off to concentration was an orchestrated effort by local prominent businessmen to eliminate competition. Once such family was the Knott Family of Knott's Berry Farm who targeted local Japanese tenant strawberry farmers.

Japanese Americans' Bank Accounts Were Frozen. They had two days to pack up one suitcase per person and were told they were being moved "for their own safety." Of course, their concentration camps were walled with barbed wire, and the guns from the watch towers pointed in towards them.

My family spent WWII living in a tent. Instead of relocating to their assigned concentration internment camp, they moved to a remote part of Utah where they had relatives who were farmers. They worked the land, living in a camping tent for four years. Because life was hard, they joked that maybe living in an internment camp would be easier. My uncle joined the military as part of the 442nd regiment.
Our family crest is the second to the left on the first row.
Unfortunately, the American government was testing nuclear weapons underground not too far from where they lived. My mother and her siblings all eventually got cancer. Her siblings died; my mother is a breast cancer survivor. And here's the greatest irony of all. My Japanese side of the family is from Hiroshima.

Of Daimyo noble descent, they lost their land - basically a township - during Japan's Meiji Revolution. The roots of this shift in power was due to America's Admiral Perry who forced Japan open to foreigners.

And, of course, there was the nuclear devastation from the bomb. My mother visited Pearl Harbor twice in her lifetime. The first was on behalf of her brother to receive recognition for his bravery during WWII as part of the 442nd regiment. She went again with me as part of a family vacation a few years ago. When I was in business school, I spent a summer in Japan working for a Japanese company. We visited Hiroshima; I met my relatives, and we saw the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum.

In many ways, my mom lived WWII. Born an American citizen, she was forced to relocate for being of Japanese descent. Her family's financial distress stretches back to Admiral Perry whose interference resulted in seismic changes in Japanese government, removing them from their source of financial stability, and causing them to lose ancestral land, which included sacred family burial grounds. To earn money to buy these lands back, they immigrated to the United States. And their ancestral land was one of two locations where devastation was wrought by nuclear bombs.

Now, in 2016 there is threat to muslims to be placed in similar concentration internment camps. What can we learn from our own history? Racism. Economics. Complicity. It is up to every decent human being in America to stop this if this dark chapter of American history isn't to repeat itself.
Japanese Internment was not about American safety. It was about racism and economics. The Japanese and Chinese immigrants worked harder and cheaper and white competitors resented losing business to them. Internment camp was the perfect way to eliminate competition.
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944),was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional. Six of eight Roosevelt appointees sided with Roosevelt. The lone Republican appointee, Owen Roberts, dissented. The opinion, written by Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent.

During the case, General Charles Fahy is alleged to have suppressed evidence by keeping from the Court a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence indicating that there was no evidence that Japanese Americans were acting as spies or sending signals to enemy submarines.

As for my mother, as soon as WWII ended, she took the Civil Servant exam and got a job as civil servant because the laws changed. She bought her family including her aging parents a duplex to live in near the Los Angeles Airport. It was too painful to go back to San Francisco I suspect. Her old apartment in San Francisco was torn down to make way for a new development. We drove by it when we took her to visit many years later. In the rubble was a samurai sword, with a crest of her family (second from the top left in the crests above), that they hid between the walls in the hurried days when they were forced to leave. No weapons were allowed. It was a symbol of their past and now it's gone forever.

And now, with the threat to round up those who are Muslim and put them in concentration camps? No. No a million times. We have to be ones to stop it. We can not let Muslim Americans become dehumanized. We have to stand up for them.

p.s. Related book lists for kids:
Hiroshima Project and Book List for Kids Pearl Harbor Book List for Kids Remembering the Veterans In My Life Book List for Kids Japan: Books for Kids on Shogun, Family Crests and Art of Shogun Period
p.p.s. More internment stories:
George Takai (Actor) Describes His Experience in a Japanese Internment Camp George Nakashima (Father of American Crafts Movement): Artisan Imprisoned in US Internment Camp
Japanese American Internment Books for Kids

Fred Korematsu Speaks Up (Fighting for Justice series) by Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi, illustrated by Yutaka Houlette

This series celebrates real-life heroes and heroines of social progress. This is Fred's story of standing up for justice by refusing to go to Japanese Internment camps for simply being of Japanese descent. He went to jail for resisting and his courage made the United States a fairer place for all Americans. [ages 10 and up]

Fred Korematsu: All American Hero by Anupam Chander, Madhavi Sunder, and Angelia Loi

Using a comic book format, this book tells the story of Fred Korematsu, a mild-mannered ordinary welder working in a shipyard who fights for justice during WWII. [graphic novel, ages 8 and up]

So Far From the Sea by Eve Bunting

Laura Iwaski and her family visit her grandfather's grave at the Manzanar War Relocation center where he died during internment. Both her parents were relocated though at different camps. Her father was a little boy when this happened and this marks the last time they will visit before moving to Boston. Their final visit sums up the attitude of most Japanese-Americans who were forced to relocate: a terrible thing that happened to them. But , as the Dad says, "Sometimes in the end there is no right or wrong. It is just a thing that happened long years ago. A thing that cannot be changed." [picture book, ages 8-12]

Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki

Ken Mochizuki's were interned at Minidoka Internment camp in Idaho, and this is the story based on true events, of how they used baseball to cope. The little boy in the story is small for his age, but preserves to become an excellent player. The story continues post-internment and things are not better. Luckily, the boy's skill in baseball helps to bring everyone together. This is the author's first picture book. [picture book, ages 8-12]

The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida, illustrated by Allen Say

I read this story a long time ago and remembered that it was a particularly sad story of internment that I couldn't bring myself to read to my girls. The little Japanese girl is given a bracelet by her American friend that she brings to internment camp that gets lost. [picture book, ages 8-12]

A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai

A bi-lingual (Japanese/English) story about the author's grandmother who was interned at Topaz and really did grow 8 foot sunflowers in the desert. A stoic story about coping with internment. This is the author's first book. [picture book, ages 7-11]

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

10 year old Manami tries to sneak her dog into internment camp when her family is separated during WWII due to anti-Japanese American laws enacted. She and her parents and grandfather must leave Bainbridge Island in Washington for a dreary camp in the desert of California. They lose everything they own, save for a suitcase they can carry. Manami loses even more; her voice is gone from the trauma and she doesn't speak after her dog is taken away. The riot in Manzanar is not well known in U.S. history, and this chapter book gives back some of the humanity taken away from the Japanese Americans who were forced into concentration camps for simply looking like the enemy. [chapter book, ages 8 and up]

Dust of Eden: A Novel by Mariko Nagai

I've read many picture books at the Japanese American internment (my mother was one such person forced to relocate during WWII) but Nagai's novel in verse is the first to really make me feel and understand the racism that my mother, who was born in San Francisco's Japantown, faced. (And it makes my blood boil.)

... I would change my hair color into a honey

blond that changes into lighter

shades of almost white during the summer,

just like Jamie's. If I could change

my name, if I could change my parents,

I could change my life. I would be an American.

But I already am.

Nagai's haunting novel in verse chronicles the Mina Tagawa's family after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Her father is held in prison without charges, her grandfather suffers in stoic silence, her older brother's anger and her mom's graceful pride not to let racism destroy them. They are forced from Seattle to Camp Harmony and then to Minidonka Relocation Center in Idaho, losing three years of their lives and much, much more.

More on Minidoka Relocation Center.

During WWII, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 in response to prejudiced fears that Japanese Americans were spies.

In 1988 when most internees were dead, the U.S. Government paid reparations to the surviving internees. My mother used hers to buy a Lexus which she drove until she could no longer operate a car.
You may not have heard of civil rights hero, Fred T. Korematsu. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government's incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government's order, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity. In 1983, Prof. Peter Irons, a legal historian, together with researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944. The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration. With this new evidence, a pro-bono legal team that included the Asian Law Caucus re-opened Korematsu's 40-year-old case on the basis of government misconduct. On November 10, 1983, Korematsu's conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history. From Korematsu Institute
Dust of Eden forces us to remember what happened and one hopes it will not happen again to anyone, but that's only if we truly learn from our mistakes.

A Jar of Dreams by Yoshiko Uchida

11-year-old Rinko lives in Berkeley, California during the Great Depression and life isn't easy, especially when you are Japanese American because she encounters prejudice almost daily. When her family opens a small laundry, their local competitor, a well-known bigot and bully, threatens them. Things change when her Aunt Waka comes to visit from Japan, and she helps to convince them to chase their dreams, even if it seems improbable that they will be given the same opportunities as non-Asians. Despite the prejudice that her family faces, Rinko learns to take pride in her Japanese self.

A Jar of Dreams is an accurate portrait of what life was like for Japanese immigrants pre- WWII, but it also details the determination, hard-work, and strong familial bonds that propelled them to succeed. [chapter book, ages 10-14]

This book list is from Books Kids Love. All of these books are out of print except for Weedflower. You can probably get them from your public library though.

The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559, Mirror Lake Internment Camp by Barry Denenberg

"Ben spent his twelfth and thirteenth years in a Japanese internment camp at desolate Mirror Lake, even though he was born in America, had never been to Japan, and could speak few Japanese words. He records his experiences and emotions in this fictional journal. At the camp, residents lived like prisoners, with barbed wire and armed guards everywhere. He writes about the sadness and frustrations of life in the camp, but also about some positive things, like playing on the camp baseball team. Historical notes and photographs are provided at the end. As with many books in this popular series, this title will help personalize this ipportant event in American history." [historical fiction chapter book, ages 9 and up]

Remembering Manzanar: Life in a Japanese Relocation Camp by Michael Cooper

"Loaded with haunting photographs and quotes from former residents (which were published in their newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press), this nonfiction title describes and provides photographs of the Manzanar Internment Camp and the living conditions and daily lives of the Japanese Americans who were interned there." [nonfiction picture book, ages 9 and up]

I Am An American by Jerry Stanley

"The Japanese-American experience during WWII is illustrated in this sad tale of one of America's darkest times. Focusing on what happened to one high-school boy, the author relates Shi Nomura's experiences to the main events of the bombing, war panic, removals to camps, return to their devastated homes, and the official government apology." [chapter book, ages 9 and up]

The Invisible Thread by Yoshiko Uchida

"The powerful memoir of a girl consigned to a concentration camp-by the US government. Yoshiko felt like a normal American girl living a normal American life, until Pearl Harbor. After that, her family and others were rounded up and sent to an intern- ment camp in the desert, along with tens of thousand of other Japanese-Americans who had no civil rights and no ability to protest the act. Uchida's treatment of this difficult period in US history is age-appropriate and handled with care." [chapter book, ages 9 and up]

Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

"Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are sent to an internment camp in the Arizona desert where they live in dusty military barracks. The camp is on an Indian reservation, and her budding friendship with a young Mohave boy depicts the joys and problems of an inter-racial friendship and fore- shadows of futures of these populations afterward." [chapter book, ages 12 and up]

Thank you for this recommendation from Ruth Barshaw:

Gaijin: American Prisoner of War by Matt Falkner

Families were separated based on their ethnicity as in this Japanese Internment story in which half Japanese Koji Miyamoto is sent to Internment camp while is white mother is allowed to stay in San Francisco. Being half white at camp is just difficult as being half Japanese in California. This is a true story based on Matt's aunt's life. [graphic novel, ages 10 and up]

Thank you for this recommendation from Patricia Tilton of Children's Books Heal:

Sylvia & Aki by Winifred Conkling

This book reveals the remarkable, never-before-told story-based on true events-of Mendez vs. Westminster School District, the California court case that desegregated schools for Latino children and set the stage for Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education at the national level.

From Booklist: This novel presents a fictionalized account of injustices endured by two real California children during World War II and is based on multiple interviews with both and other historical records. In alternating chapters Conkling follows the forced relocation of young Aki Munemitsu and her family to a camp in Arizona and the experiences of Sylvia Mendez, who moves into Aki's old room when her father rents the Munemitsus' asparagus farm. When his children are denied enrollment in the town's main school, Sylvia's father institutes what becomes the landmark desegregation suit Mendez v. Westminster School District. [chapter book, ages 9 and up]

Four-Four-Two by Dean Hughes

Review from Ms. YingLing Reads:

Yuki lives on a farm in California, and right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, things get bad. His father is taken away, and the family ends up at an internment after having to sell the farm. Despite this, Yuki andhis friend Shig both feel that they should join the army, and end up training in the South and being deployed to Italy with the 442nd "Go For Broke" regiment. This group saw horrendous action and was involved in a lot of fighting. Yuki sees many of his comrades fall on the field of battle, and sees others gravely injured. He suffers wounds himself, and also battles crippling pain in his feet due to having to remain in wet footwear in the cold. Eventually, a bullet and a collapsed lung send him home, where he faces prejudice in a Colorado barber shop and returns to his family in the internment camp. [young adult, ages 12 and up]

Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story by Caren Stelson

Review by Ms. YingLing Reads:

Sachiko Yasui was six years old when the US dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Miraculously, she survived with minimal immediate wounds, as did her parents, three siblings, and an uncle. While they struggled with housing, food and general survival for quite some time, the real problem was the after effects of the radiation. Her brothers and uncle succumbed quickly, and caner eventually took her sister and father as well. At the time of publication, however, Sachiko was still alice. She chose not to speak about her experiences until after the death of her mother in 1992.

This book tells her story in an informative and yet gripping way. The historical background of the war is explained in understandable ways and adds depth to the narrative. Period photos, ads, and other documents are all helpful in explaining the larger picture, and the bibliography will help students find other books on the topic.

This would be an excellent companion book to Kathleen Burkinshaw's The Last Cherry Blossom, and is best read after that book, since it picks up near the end of that fictional title. At 112 pages, it is a perfect length, and I'm excited to have this title to offer to students who either are interested in this time period OR are being "forces" to read nonfiction for class. Both types of students will be pleased with this. [young adult, ages 12 and up]

The Last Cherry Blossom by Kathleen Burkinshaw

Review from The Children's War:

The Last Cherry Blossom is a story of unfathomable loss, but also of hope, resilience, and survival. Paired with Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, both these stories should stand as a cautionary tale about war and the use of what we would now call weapons of mass destruction, and never forget that, as Burkinshaw reminds us in her Afterword, "the victims were all someone's mother, father, brother, sister, or child." It was true then, and is still true today. [chapter book, ages 11 and up]

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr, illustrated by Ronald Himler

Review from The Children's War:

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a emotionally, powerful story. It is a perfect book for introducing this difficult topic to young readers. There are no detailed graphic images described about the war, the bomb or even to after effects, only an acknowledgement of these things. [chapter book, ages 8 and up]

To examine any book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.
I am an Amazon affiliate which means if you buy anything through my blog, I get a very small kickback at no cost to you. I use this money to pay for postage and handling for my giveaways.
p.s. 21 powerful photos show what life inside a Japanese internment camp was like here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
japanese internment books for kids & my family's story

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Japanese Internment Books for Kids & My Family's Story

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During WWII, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 in response to prejudiced fears that Japanese Americans were spies. I'm probably one of a few children's book blogger whose family was forced into internment camps during WWII for being Japanese American.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"We're dying off," said Ms. Okubo, 71, who lives in Sacramento.

The two were accompanied by a group of about 70 others who had come to support them. During a luncheon, an organizer asked Ms. Okubo to speak about her detention. "I don't have any memories," she said apologetically. "I was born here at Amache."

Amache was the smallest of 10 internment camps, reaching a peak population of just over 7,000. In recent years, bigger camps like Tule Lake (which grew to a population of 18,789) and Manzanar (which had a peak population 10,046) have received large numbers of visitors, and their stories continue to be recounted in classrooms and in books like the 1973 memoir "Farewell to Manzanar," by James D. Houston and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston.

But few in Colorado even know Amache existed. The lone comprehensive book on the camp is out of print. And survivors say that as they age and their peers die, their experiences are falling deeper into the footnotes of history.

Amache (pronounced ah-motch-EE) sits at the edge of Granada, a farming community of 500 people. It is a four-hour drive south from Denver, through ranch land and past gas stations.

The camp was named for a Cheyenne princess who had married a local cattle baron, and it was also known as the Granada War Relocation Center.

Today, the space where its residents once lived is an unruly carpet of prickly shrubs and wildflowers that is dotted with hints of its past life: shattered porcelain, exposed rebar, slabs of concrete and the occasional ribbon of barbed wire.

There are almost no buildings. When the final detainees left on Oct. 15, 1945, the camp's roughly 550 structures were auctioned off and moved, dispersed just like their inhabitants.

Many residents, like Mr. Fuchigami, had come from California.

Mr. Fuchigami, who now lives near Denver, was born in the United States. He was 12 when his family of 10 people left its walnut and peach tree farm outside Yuba City. The family leased - and later lost - its farm to a white man, and took up residence in two rooms in 7G.

A naked bulb hung from the rafters of each tin-walled space, and during the first winter the temperature dropped to 22 degrees below zero.

In some ways, the detention camp operated like a typical American city. There were schools, a fire department, a Boy Scout troop and a semiweekly newspaper. It had businesses for detainees and contributed to several industries at large, including pumping out thousands of war propaganda posters. The camp even had its own football team, the Amache Indians.

Four hundred fifteen babies were born. And nearly 1,000 residents entered military service, the highest percentage of any internment camp, according to Robert Harvey, the author of the out-of-print book, "Amache."

"But it wasn't freedom," Ms. Okubo said. "To be swept up and have two suitcases of stuff, and go to an area you've never known before, with the sandstorms coming through the cracks."

Mr. Fuchigami recalled the armed guards, and the floodlights that interrupted each night's sleep. At Amache, he said, he became intensely jealous of a kite he had fashioned from sticks and newspapers. "A kite can fly wherever it wants to go," he said, noting the way it soared over the barbed wire as he remained inside.

"There was always this feeling," he said, "well, what are we in for? Why are we in here? What are they going to do to us tomorrow or the next day?"

Mr. Fuchigami has attended the pilgrimage each year since about 2006. This year, he was accompanied by his wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Sejal Gordon, 10. He was determined to show Sejal the camp.

It took them nearly an hour - and the assistance of an archaeologist who just happened to be passing through - to identify the spot where he had once slept.

"This wind is very familiar to me," he said, standing by the remains of the barracks as gusts blew through his white hair.

Amache, while not nearly as well known as camps like Manzanar and Tule Lake, in California, has not been entirely forgotten.

John Hopper is a teacher, a sports coach and the principal at Granada Public Schools. In 1993, he decided to make a class project out of Camp Amache.

Since then, his students have interviewed former internees, gathered documents, excavated portions of the camp and built a small museum, often partnering with other groups. In 2006, the site became a National Historic Landmark.

One of the students' most ambitious projects involves chasing down the camp's scattered buildings and returning them to the camp. In 2014, they helped bring back a water tank and reconstruct a guard tower.

This June, they will lay the foundation for a barracks building they plan to move from a farm in Stonington, Colo., about 60 miles south.

The goal, said Mr. Hopper, 52, is to create a museum where people can sleep over and experience camp life. "You need a building so they understand what it was like," he said.

A lack of funds, however, has slowed its completion. Much of the money for the project has come from those who once lived here, and he hopes to have it ready before the last one dies. "We've been chomping at the bit," he added. "We're running out of time."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Revisiting a World War II Internment Camp, as Others Try to Keep Its Story From Fading

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"We're dying off," said Ms. Okubo, 71, who lives in Sacramento. The two were accompanied by a group of about 70 others who had come to support them. During a luncheon, an organizer asked Ms. Okubo to speak about her detention. "I don't have any memories," she said apologetically.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
POLITICS

Seven decades ago, Japanese-American kids facing similar discrimination were forced from their homes and imprisoned.

During World War II, a San Diego librarian named Clara Estelle Breed could often be found at the local railroad station, passing out stamped and self-addressed postcards to the Japanese-American children being shipped off to what officials euphemistically called "internment camps."

"Write letters to me," she told the youngsters, whom she'd grown to adore from her work at the San Diego Public Library.

The children were among some 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry -- over half of them children -- incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II. The majority were either U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, but were nevertheless kept behind barbed wire fences and under the watch of armed guards.

Throughout the war, the children wrote hundreds of letters to "Miss Breed," as they called her, describing the daily occurrences of life inside an American concentration camp.

It's important that we bring together the collective experiences of communities who have been targeted in American history. Filmmaker Frank Chi

Now, over 70 years later, a filmmaker has put those letters into the hands of young Muslim American children who, because of their faith, are today the targets of a frighteningly familiar bigotry. In a deeply moving video by Frank Chi called "Letters From Camp," the children read the letters alongside Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.

"Dear Miss Breed, thank you ever so much for your lovely card," one child reads aloud. "I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, even though the world is in such turmoil."

"Now there is a fence all around this camp," reads another. "I hope very soon this fence will be torn down."

"Of course," another child reads, "we know that good friends like you would be glad to have us back, but others who do not know us, or understand us, may not be glad to see us."

"We all know that there are people all over the world who hate certain races and just can't help it," reads one of the older Japanese-American survivors.

In perhaps the most gut-wrenching moment of the video, one elderly survivor tearfully reads, "But I'm sure when this war is over, there will be no racial discrimination, and we won't have to doubt for a minute the great principles of democracy."

They are growing up in a time when they are bullied for their faith, and when the number of acts of violence, discrimination and harassment targeting Muslims has risen dramatically.

"In the age of Islamophobia, some Americans are again targeting one group of Americans based on fear," Chi, the filmmaker behind "Letters From Camp," told The Huffington Post in an email. Chi's video will be featured this month among the works of 40 artists at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center's culture lab on intersectionality, called " Crosslines."

"If you turn on the news, or go on social media, you will hear many angry anti-Muslim voices," Chi said. "Some calling for banning refugees, some calling for Muslim Americans to be put into camps. There have even been cases when people use the incarceration of Japanese-Americans as justification."

"It's important that we bring together the collective experiences of communities who have been targeted in American history," he continued. "To make sure that 1) we never repeat the mistakes of the past, and 2) support each other through times of hate."

Many have seen parallels between the anti-Muslim rhetoric of today and the anti-Japanese rhetoric of the 1940s. In fact, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) -- who is featured in "Letters From Camp" and spent the first few years of his life incarcerated with his family at the Amache camp in Colorado -- recently told HuffPost that what happened to him and his family "could happen again," only this time to Muslim Americans.

It could happen if lawmakers like him aren't "vigilant" and "don't recognize the symptoms," Honda said. "The symptoms for [Japanese-Americans] were racial bigotry, war hysteria and the failure of political leadership."

It's more important now than ever that we respond to that hate with love." Frank Chi

This is why Honda recently introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives which "denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim."

And it's why Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) introduced a resolution in the Senate in February marking the anniversary of Executive Order 9066, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1942 order to imprison Japanese-Americans during the war.

Tucked near the end of Hirono's resolution is a paragraph that reads: "Whereas the terrorist attacks carried out in Paris, France, on November 5, 2015, have led to renewed calls from public officials and figures to register Muslim Americans and bar millions from entering the United States based solely on the religion of those individuals, repeating the mistakes of 1942."

( Neither resolution, it should be noted, has gained the support of a single Republican in the House or Senate.)

Chi said he hoped "as many Americans as possible" will see "Letters From Camp."

"For Muslim children, who're afraid that who they are will get them hurt," he said. "For Japanese Americans, who want to memorialize the experience of their families. Even for those who are inclined to vilify or hate. I hope this video reminds us that we are all human beings trying to do the best for our families."

"Hate is making a comeback in America," he continued. "It's more important now than ever that we respond to that hate with love. Making 'Letters from Camp' was my act of love. I hope it can move others to do the same in their own way."

ALSO ON HUFFPOST

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Muslim Kids Read Letters From WWII As History Repeats Itself

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
POLITICS Seven decades ago, Japanese-American kids facing similar discrimination were forced from their homes and imprisoned. During World War II, a San Diego librarian named Clara Estelle Breed could often be found at the local railroad station, passing out stamped and self-addressed postcards to the Japanese-American children being shipped off to what officials euphemistically called "internment camps."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Children of the Camps | INTERNMENT HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
“Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of ‘national security’ were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age.” - “Years of Infamy”, Michi Weglyn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Main - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A grassroots organization dedicated to preserving, educating, and sharing the story of World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans in order to deepen understandings of American history and inspire action for equity.