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US Government Newsreel: A Challenge to Democracy

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US Government Newsreel: A Challenge to Democracy

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U.S. Government Newsreel: A Challenge to Democracy

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U.S. Government Newsreel: Japanese Relocation (1943)

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U.S. Government Newsreel: Japanese Relocation (1943)

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U.S. Government Newsreel: Japanese Relocation

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Baseball returns to former Japanese American incarceration camp in California

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"One Fighting Irishman: And The Tule Lake Segregation Center" (2024)

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"One Fighting Irishman: And The Tule Lake Segregation Center" (2024)

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Home - Wayne Collins - One Fighting Irishman

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ONE FIGHTING IRISHMAN tells the story of civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins whose defense of the Constitution drove him to spend 23 years successfully representing more than 5,000 Japanese Americans who renounced their American citizenship while imprisoned at Tule Lake Segregation Center.

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"We Are Not Free" Reading Guide from Heart Mountain Interpretive Center

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"We Are Not Free" Reading Guide from Heart Mountain Interpretive Center

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Denshō - Preserving Japanese American stories of the past for the generations of tomorrow

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Denshō - Preserving Japanese American stories of the past for the generations of tomorrow

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Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Learn about this unprecedented denial of civil liberties and why it still matters today.

Learn about Japanese American history and the legacy of WWII incarceration by exploring personal stories from those who lived through it.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Join us in putting the lessons of Japanese American WWII incarceration into action today.

Densho Content Director Brian Niiya answers a question about the origin of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.

Percussionist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist Paul Kikuchi speaks with Densho Community Curator Erin Shigaki about the influences of his ancestors, identity, and community on his art. Kikuchi shares, "How easily...

Thank you to everyone who tuned in on October 5 for Densho's 2023 virtual fundraiser, Our Voices Will Not Be Silenced!

Stay Informed: Join The Mailing List

Campu: A Podcast

Campu weaves together the voices of survivors to spin narratives out of the seemingly mundane things that gave shape to the incarceration experience: rocks, fences, food, paper. Follow along as hosts Hana and Noah Maruyama move far beyond the standard Japanese American incarceration 101 and into more intimate and lesser-known corners of this history.

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Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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Preserving Japanese American stories of the past for the generations of tomorrow.

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A Song for Ourselves by Tadashi Nakamura (2009)

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A Song for Ourselves by Tadashi Nakamura (2009)

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A SONG FOR OURSELVES (2009) TRT: 35 Min.

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"The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration" Eds. Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung (2024)

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"The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration" Eds. Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung (2024)

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Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration: Unlocking the Voices of Issei and Kibei Nisei Writers

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In this guest post, Frank Abe introduces a selection from the new anthology, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, which he co-edited with Floyd Cheung. The book was published this…

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"The Poet and the Silk Girl: A Memoir of Love, Imprisonment, and Protest" by Satsuki Ina (2024)

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"The Poet and the Silk Girl: A Memoir of Love, Imprisonment, and Protest" by Satsuki Ina (2024)

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Hardcover, 6 x 9, 312 pages | Pub Date: March 26, 2024

ISBN: 9781597146265.

A compelling and prismatic love story of one family's defiance in the face of injustice-and how their story echoes across generations.
In 1942 newlyweds Itaru and Shizuko Ina were settling into married life when the United States government upended their world. They were forcibly removed from their home and incarcerated in wartime American concentration camps solely on account of their Japanese ancestry. When the Inas, under duress, renounced their American citizenship, the War Department branded them enemy aliens and scattered their family across the U.S. interior. Born to Itaru and Shizuko during their imprisonment, psychotherapist and activist Satsuki Ina weaves their story together in this moving mosaic. Through diary entries, photographs, clandestine letters, and heart-wrenching haiku, she reveals how this intrepid young couple navigated life, love, loss, and loyalty tests in the welter of World War II-era hysteria.

The Poet and the Silk Girl illustrates through one family's saga the generational struggle of Japanese Americans who resisted racist oppression, fought for the restoration of their rights, and clung to their full humanity in the face of adversity. With psychological insight, Ina excavates the unmentionable, recovering a chronicle of resilience amidst one of the severest blows to American civil liberties. As she traces the legacies of trauma, she connects her family's ordeal to modern-day mass incarceration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Lyrical and gripping, this cautionary tale implores us to prevent the repetition of atrocity, pairing healing and protest with galvanizing power.

Reviews

"A profound and moving testimony to intergenerational trauma and resistance." -Tony Platt, author of Beyond These Walls Tony Platt, author of Beyond These Walls and The Scandal of Cal

"Satsuki Ina's family-rooted memoir, The Poet and the Silk Girl, is a genuinely classic work in Asian American Studies. In it, she draws upon her multiple talents as an accomplished university teacher, a published poet, a skilled psychotherapist, a seasoned documentary filmmaker, an author of novelistic prose studies, and an activist of social conscience to produce a richly documented and reasoned investigation of how the U.S. government's unjust World War II oppression of some 125,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry set in motion an intergenerational transmission of trauma that now urgently needs to be addressed and redressed." Art Hansen, author of Barbed Voices and A Nikkei Harvest

"This incredibly poignant account reveals how a daughter uncovered why her parents went from buying war bonds and voting in every election to renouncing their citizenship during the World War II mass incarceration. As you view photographs and read her parents' letters, diary entries, and lyrical poetry, you can't help but feel their anxiety, fear, anger, and emotional turmoil as they lose faith in the US and decide their future lay in Japan. In writing this family memoir, Satsuki Ina pays tribute to her parents' courageous protest and love of family while also showing how their suffering inspired her support of recent Central American migrants experiencing indefinite detention and family separation." Alice Yang, Professor of History and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Pacific War Memories

About the Author

Satsuki Ina is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in community trauma. She helps victims of oppression to claim not only their voice but also their power to transform the systems that have oppressed them. Her activism has included cofounding Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, direct-action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end detention sites. Ina has produced two documentaries about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, Children of the Camps and From a Silk Cocoon. She has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, TIME, Democracy Now! and the documentary And Then They Came for Us. A professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

(Photo by Paul Kitagaki Jr.)

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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The Poet and the Silk Girl by Satsuki Ina

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A compelling and prismatic love story of one family's defiance in the face of injustice-and how their story echoes across generations. In 1942 newlyweds The Poet and the Silk Girl is a compelling and prismatic love story of one family's defiance in the face of injustice-and how their story echoes across generations.

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Japanese American Incarceration in World War II from Choices 

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Japanese American Incarceration in World War II from Choices 

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Japanese American Incarceration in World War II - Choices Program

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In this unit (FREE in Digital Editions), students examine U.S.-Japan relations before World War II, experiences of incarcerated Japanese Americans, and ways the Japanese American community and others in the U.S. have remembered incarceration.

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"My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story" by George Takei (2024)

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"My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story" by George Takei (2024)

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George Takei ‘Lost Freedom’ some 80 years ago – now he’s written that story for kids

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When actor George Takei was 4 years old, he was labeled an “enemy” by the U.S. government and sent to a string of incarceration camps. His new children’s book about that time is My Lost Freedom.

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"They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei (2019)

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"They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei (2019)

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Winner of the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature!

Winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work!

" They Called Us Enemy is truly beautiful - moving, thoughtful, important, engaging, and stunningly rendered. I am so excited to see this book's impact on the world." - Jacqueline Woodson, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and National Book Award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming

"George Takei's story reveals the important lessons of the WWII Japanese American Incarceration that still need to be learned today. They Called Us Enemy is a compelling must-read for all ages." - Karen Korematsu, Founder and Executive Director, Fred T. Korematsu Institute

"Riveting... Takei has evolved into an increasingly powerful voice for oppressed communities, and Enemy finds him at peak moral clarity - an unflinching force in these divisive times." - The Washington Post

"A detailed, wrenching account... They Called Us Enemy should prove the most potent introduction for younger readers to this ignoble chapter in our history." - The New York Times

"Powerful, moving and relevant." - Los Angeles Times

"Moving and layered... Giving a personal view into difficult history, [ They Called Us Enemy] is a testament to hope and tenacity in the face of adversity." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A compelling blend of nostalgia and outrage... this approachable, well-wrought graphic memoir is important reading, particularly in today's political climate." - Booklist (starred review)

"This evocative memoir shares stories of the nation's past, draws heartbreaking parallels to the present, and serves as a cautionary tale for the future." - School Library Journal (starred review)

"Emotionally staggering... They Called Us Enemy also inspires readers to engage through democracy to insist that we treat fellow human beings with fairness and dignity." - Amazon's "Best Books of the Month"

"A cogent reminder that liberty and justice is not always for all, They Called Us Enemy explores a dark episode of America's past as it dives into the heart of a pop culture icon." - Foreword Reviews' "Indie Books That'll Blow You Away"

"The creators are gifted storytellers, and Takei has a great story to tell, full of unexpected twists. And as compelling as it is, it is also inspirational, a story of ordinary people and the choices they faced in an extraordinary time." "A tale of triumph over adversity." - BBC America

American Book Award AWARD 2020

Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APLA)-Literature Award AWARD 2020

Eisner Awards AWARD 2020

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They Called Us Enemy: Expanded Edition by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Harmony Becker: 9781603094702 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Winner of the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature! Winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work! " They Called Us Enemy is truly beautiful - moving, thoughtful, important, engaging, and stunningly rendered. I am so excited to see this book's impact on the world."

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"This decades-spanning story of a Japanese American family is filled with artfully crafted scenes, memorable characters, and a rare compassion that highlights our common humanity and suffering. Ben Masaoka's debut novel is thoroughly engaging and a joy to read." - Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage, National Book Award winner

"With restraint and grace, Ben Masaoka has written my idea of a perfect novel. Criminals is a haunting and wondrous work, unsettling and beautiful." -Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Dog of the North

" Gaman is the Japanese word for 'perseverance.' If you were a Japanese American boy in Los Angeles in the 1960s, you had to gaman it every day-you had four seconds to climb the rope in gym class; one second to react when someone pulled on their eyes and called you a Nip; and a lifetime to remember your father coming home after a day of mowing other people's lawns. In Ben Masaoka's remarkable Criminals, America is Godzilla rising from the sea at Venice Beach to stomp on the Japanese American Dream, barely noticing the dreamers below as they fight back with rocks, sticks and gaman. Masaoka's hang-loose brilliance takes us on a vividly observed, wonderfully quirky, and deeply moving exploration of generational trauma. He captures the desires, blows, and little victories of a family on the fringes of a community where everyone is trying so hard not to rock the boat, they don't notice their children are adrift. He tells a story that touched every nerve in my Japanese American soul. -Steven Okazaki, Academy Award-winning filmmaker

Ben Masaoka, born and raised in Los Angeles, was a trianglist for many years between Los Angeles, Seattle, and Hawaii. He traded the sun for the tall, dark green trees of the Northwest. His short stories have been published in the Chicago Review of Books and Catamaran Literary Reader.

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CRIMINALS by Ben Masaoka - Propeller Books

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Criminals follows the lives of a sister and brother, Ruth and Hank Tanazaki, as they struggle to free themselves from the weight of their parents' generation in a small Japanese American community in Los Angeles in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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"Fred Korematsu Speaks Up" by Stan Yogi and Laura Atkins (2017)

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"Fred Korematsu Speaks Up" by Stan Yogi and Laura Atkins (2017)

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Not enough students learn about the internment (better described as imprisonment) of Japanese Americans during World War II in the United States. But of those who do, even fewer learn about resistance by Japanese Americans. Fred Korematsu believed that what the U.S. government was doing was unconstitutional and fought his internment all the way to the Supreme Court. That is why this story should be in every classroom. Filled with photos, primary documents, and illustrations, Fred Korematsu Speaks Up tells Korematsu's story, including how the case was reopened in 1983 when lawyer Peter Irons found hidden documents at the National Archives. With discussions of a "Muslim registry" in the news, this book couldn't be more timely. Middle school and above. [Review by Rethinking Schools.]

Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends-just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before. But Fred refused to go. He knew that what the government was doing was unfair. And when he got put in jail for resisting, he knew he couldn't give up. [Publisher's description.]

ISBN: 9781597143684 | Published by Heyday Books.

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Fred Korematsu Speaks Up - Zinn Education Project

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Book - Non-fiction. By Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi. Illustrated by Yutaka Houlette. 2017. 112 pages. Story of Fred Koretmatsu, jailed for resisting internment by the U.S. government during WWII. He took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

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"We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration" by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura (2021)

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"We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration" by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura (2021)

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We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration — Wing Luke Museum

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“Three voices … Three acts of defiance … One mass injustice .” Three Japanese American individuals with different backgrounds and beliefs expose the devastating effects of illegal imprisonment and the widespread and varied forms of resistance during World War II. Jim Akutsu resisted the draft argui

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The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 by Delphine Hirasuna (2005)

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"The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946"

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"The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946"

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The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946

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The Art of Gaman showcases arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II.

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Second Edition

SUBJECT LISTING: Asian American Studies, Literature / Creative Nonfiction

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: 240 Pages, 6 x 9 in, 198 illus.

SERIES: Classics of Asian American Literature

ISBN: 9780295993546

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Second Edition SUBJECT LISTING: Asian American Studies, Literature / Creative Nonfiction BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: 240 Pages, 6 x 9 in, 198 illus. SERIES: Classics of Asian American Literature ISBN: 9780295993546

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"The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924" by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyan and Frederik L. Schodt (1999)

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"The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924" by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyan and Frederik L. Schodt (1999)

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The Four Immigrants Manga | Catalog | Stone Bridge Press

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The first English translation of the groundbreaking 1931 graphic novel!

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"All around me, my friends are talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us.

We are not free.

But we are not alone."

From New York Times best-selling and acclaimed author Traci Chee comes We Are Not Free, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco.

Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted.

Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.
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In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

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WE ARE NOT FREE Clarion Books/HarperCollins (prev. HMH), September 1, 2020

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Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles

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Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles

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Activities and Resources

Activities and resources for learners of all ages that make learning about the Japanese American experience engaging and exciting. Resources include printable offline activities, origami videos, web resources and lessons, printable curriculum, and more.

Join our Education Unit on JANM's social media as they make learning fun and exciting through engaging activities, virtual speakers, and educational resources, including printable offline activities for the entire family.

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Activities and resources for learners of all ages that make learning about the Japanese American experience engaging and exciting. Resources include printable offline activities, origami videos, web resources and lessons, printable curriculum, and more. Join our Education Unit on JANM's social media as they make learning fun and exciting through engaging activities, virtual speakers, and educational resources, including printable offline activities for the entire family.

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Learn about the artist, view the drawings that contributed to Citizen 13660, activity guide!

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Miné Okubo’s Masterpiece: The Art of Citizen 13660 - Miné Okubo | Japanese American National Museum

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Gift of Miné Okubo Estate, 2007.62.557_2 Tenacious and prolific, Japanese American artist Miné Okubo continued perfecting her art even as war intervened twice during the nascent years of her promising career.&nbsp

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And They Came For Us, Dir. Abby Ginzberg (2019)

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And They Came For Us, Dir. Abby Ginzberg (2019)

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About the FilmSeventy-eight years ago, Executive Order 9066 paved the way to the profound violation of constitutional rights that resulted in the forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Featuring George Takei and many others who were incarcerated, as well as newly rediscovered photographs of Dorothea Lange, And Then They Came for Us brings history into the present, retelling this difficult story and following Japanese American activists as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban. Knowing our history is the first step to ensuring we do not repeat it. And Then They Came for Us is a cautionary and inspiring tale for these dark times. Please partner with us to share this critical story.“It was a failure of American democracy, and yet because most Americans are not aware of that dark chapter of American history, it’s about to be repeated.”- George Takei, Actor and Activist

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Tsuru for Solidarity: Stop Repeating History

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Tsuru for Solidarity: Stop Repeating History

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Tsuru for Solidarity: Stop Repeating History

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Tsuru for Solidarity is a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end detention sites and support front-line immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies.

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50 Objects, 50 Stories: The Untold Stories of Incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII

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50 Objects, 50 Stories: The Untold Stories of Incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII

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50 Objects, 50 Stories: The Untold Stories of Incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII

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“50 Objects/50 Stories of the American Japanese Incarceration” is a project made up of 50 objects that each give a raw, true narrative of the exclusion and confinement of 120,000 American Japanese during World War II. Objects owned by families, museums, and educational institutions have been researched, reviewed, and compiled to create a well-rounded representation …

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"Those Who Helped Us" by Ken Mochizuki and Kiku Hughes (2022)

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"Those Who Helped Us" by Ken Mochizuki and Kiku Hughes (2022)

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Get the new follow up to We Hereby Refuse! Those Who Helped Us is our latest graphic novel about allies who helped Japanese Americans during the WWII incarceration.
Basketball-loving Sumiko Tanaka, then 11, narrates this graphic novel about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Through her eyes, we watch as her family is forced from their home and subjected to indiscriminate racism as they are shipped off to the concentration camp called Minidoka in Idaho. But Sumiko and her 17-year-old sister Yuri also see acts of charity and solidarity from their non-Japanese neighbors and friends in the Seattle area that make them hopeful for the future. As the young girls struggle with the horrors of being imprisoned in the dusty desert, they also find solace in the fact that some people chose to help. This story highlights the actual actions and experiences of those neighbors and friends.

Written by local author Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by local artist Kiku Hughes. Co-published by Wing Luke Museum and Chin Music Press.

Get the new follow up to We Hereby Refuse! Those Who Helped Us is our latest graphic novel about allies who helped Japanese Americans during the WWII incarceration.
Basketball-loving Sumiko Tanaka, then 11, narrates this graphic novel about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Through her eyes, we watch as her family is forced from their home and subjected to indiscriminate racism as they are shipped off to the concentration camp called Minidoka in Idaho. But Sumiko and her 17-year-old sister Yuri also see acts of charity and solidarity from their non-Japanese neighbors and friends in the Seattle area that make them hopeful for the future. As the young girls struggle with the horrors of being imprisoned in the dusty desert, they also find solace in the fact that some people chose to help. This story highlights the actual actions and experiences of those neighbors and friends.

Written by local author Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by local artist Kiku Hughes. Co-published by Wing Luke Museum and Chin Music Press.

Get the new follow up to We Hereby Refuse! Those Who Helped Us is our latest graphic novel about allies who helped Japanese Americans during the WWII incarceration.
Basketball-loving Sumiko Tanaka, then 11, narrates this graphic novel about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Through her eyes, we watch as her family is forced from their home and subjected to indiscriminate racism as they are shipped off to the concentration camp called Minidoka in Idaho. But Sumiko and her 17-year-old sister Yuri also see acts of charity and solidarity from their non-Japanese neighbors and friends in the Seattle area that make them hopeful for the future. As the young girls struggle with the horrors of being imprisoned in the dusty desert, they also find solace in the fact that some people chose to help. This story highlights the actual actions and experiences of those neighbors and friends.

Written by local author Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by local artist Kiku Hughes. Co-published by Wing Luke Museum and Chin Music Press.

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Get the new follow up to We Hereby Refuse ! Those Who Helped Us is our latest graphic novel about allies who helped Japanese Americans during the WWII incarceration. Basketball-loving Sumiko Tanaka, then 11, narrates this graphic novel about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Ame

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Book Details

A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes.

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself "stuck" back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.

Kiku Hughes weaves a riveting, bittersweet tale that highlights the intergenerational impact and power of memory.

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A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes. Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

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Roger Shimomura 'More Little White Lies" (2024)

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Roger Shimomura 'More Little White Lies" (2024)

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Roger Shimomura | Greg Kucera Gallery | Seattle

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RECENT PRESS: March 5, 2024 International Examiner Roger Shimomura's 'More Little White Lies' upsets expectations and worldviews in 100 very small paintings by Susan Platt

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Curriculum Guide from FDR Presidential Library & Museum

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Curriculum Guide from FDR Presidential Library & Museum

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CONTEXT PARAGRAPHS

Japanese American Internment

In the uncertain weeks after the Japanese surprise at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 many Americans-particularly those on the Pacific coast- feared enemy attack and saw danger in every corner.

These fears, combined with racial prejudice, led to a great injustice. Early in 1942, civilian and military leaders on the West Coast charged that members of the region's large Japanese American community might be working with Japan's military to plan acts of sabotage. Though no serious evidence of this existed, they pushed the Roosevelt administration for action.

On February 19, 1942, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. More than two-thirds of these people were native born American citizens. They were confined in inland internment camps operated by the military.

Executive Order 9066

FDR's Executive Order 9066 led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Abruptly forced to abandon or sell their homes and businesses, many lost everything they owned. Despite this injustice, thousands of young Japanese American men from the camps volunteered to serve in the nation's military, where they distinguished themselves with extraordinary valor in combat. The 442 nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), comprised entirely of Japanese Americans, became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.

ER and Internment

Eleanor Roosevelt opposed internment and tried to stop FDR from issuing Executive Order 9066. Concerned about the potential hysteria against Japanese Americans, she visited Japanese American communities and praised their patriotism. But when she discussed the issue with FDR he was unmoved.

ER did not speak out publicly against her husband's decision, opting instead to work quietly behind the scenes. But many in the Japanese American community knew of her sympathies. In April 1943 she visited the Gila River relocation camp in Arizona. She was impressed by the character and perseverance of the detainees. In a report to FDR she urged him to relax the order and allow detainees to return to their homes. ER's report helped convince FDR to explore releasing some with work permits. By the end of 1943 one-third had been released from the camps. It would not be until January 1945, however, before the Executive order was rescinded and all the internees were released.

The Supreme Court upheld the President's Executive order in two wartime cases. But in the 1980s, the United States Congress acknowledged this gross violation of the civil liberties of American citizens and voted to provide some financial compensation to individuals confined in the camps. The Supreme Court also vacated its earlier wartime rulings.

CENTRAL ISSUE

In times of national crisis individual civil liberties must be weighed against protecting the public at large.

Today, the decision to intern Japanese Americans is widely viewed by historians and legal scholars as a stain on Roosevelt's wartime record.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested over 1,200 Japanese aliens throughout the United States. Over the next several weeks, President Roosevelt received contradictory advice about further action.

FDR's military advisers recommended the exclusion of persons of foreign descent, including American citizens, from sensitive areas of the country as a safeguard against espionage and sabotage. The Justice Department initially resisted any relocation order, questioning both its military necessity and its constitutionality.

But the shock of Pearl Harbor and subsequent news of Japanese atrocities in the Philippines intensified long standing racial tensions on America's West Coast. In the face of political, military and public pressure, Roosevelt accepted the relocation proposal. His Attorney General acquiesced only after the War Department relieved the Justice Department of any responsibility for implementation.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 granting the War Department broad powers to create military exclusion areas. Although the order did not identify any particular group, in practice it was used almost exclusively to intern Americans of Japanese descent. By 1943, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living along the West Coast had been forced from their homes and moved to camps in remote inland areas of the United States.

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Curriculum Guide - Japanese American Internment - FDR Presidential Library & Museum

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In the uncertain weeks after the Japanese surprise at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 many Americans-particularly those on the Pacific coast- feared enemy attack and saw danger in every corner. These fears, combined with racial prejudice, led to a great injustice.

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Teach about the Incarceration from Densho

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Teach about the Incarceration from Densho

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Japanese American Incarceration Education Resources from The National WWII Museum

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Japanese American Incarceration Education Resources from The National WWII Museum

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In the weeks and months following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the forces of the Empire of Japan, fear and suspicion concerning when and where the next attack on America would come spread uncontrolled and uncontained throughout the United States. For many Americans, especially those living on the US West Coast, a third question was asked after 'when' and 'where': 'who' would attack us next, as many residents of Washington, Oregon, and California began to view members of their own communities with panic and mistrust. At the beginning of World War II, of the 120,000 total persons of Japanese and Japanese American ancestry living in the United States, 112,000 of them resided on the US West Coast.

From politicians and private citizens alike, racial anxiety multiplied with questions ranging from dual loyalty-whether Japanese Americans support their adopted homeland or their cultural home-to outright accusations of actives networks of fifth-columnists, spies, and saboteurs that could be lurking and working against the United States unforeseen.

As Japan's succession of military victories in Guam, Malaya, and the Philippines continued throughout the beginning of 1942, America's fixations on and delusions about its Japanese American neighbors, business partners, and schoolmates crescendoed, reaching the highest office in the land. Bowing to pressure and justification based entirely along racial lines, President Franklin Roosevelt, on February 19, 1942, issued Executive Order 9066, which directed the War Department to transform vast swathes of the US West Coast into military areas from which anyone could be excluded for essentially any reason. By May of 1942, Washington, Oregon, and California's populations of Japanese and Japanese American citizens and residents-the true target of 9066-would be gone: forced to leave their homes and most of their possessions behind to be transported and incarcerated at one of 10 incarceration centers deep within the American interior, denied any appeal and all due process of law. However, despite these stoking of fear and racial prejudice, none of these individuals of Japanese or Japanese American ancestry were ever convicted of any crime. Indeed, many of them would go on to serve their country even after their true allegiance had been considered so suspect that they had been placed behind barbed wire.

Photograph of Dust Storm at Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center, courtesy National Archives.

Beginning in 1978, state governments and members of the Japanese American community, especially former and current residents of Washington, Oregon, and California, have recognized February 19-the day Executive Order 9066 was issued-as a Day of Remembrance. On and around February 19, members of the Japanese American community come together to observe, remember, and reflect on the great wrong that was done to them and their relatives and the resilience and determination they displayed in the years of and decades following World War II.

On this Day of Remembrance, The National WWII Museum wishes to highlight Museum educational resources for middle and high school teachers and students that can be used on February 19 and throughout the year to learn more about the events and aftermath of Japanese American incarceration. These materials, many of them drawn from the Museum's "From The Collection To The Classroom" curriculum series and Distance Learning Video Archive, are all available free to download or to view with your students.

To begin the discussion or to introduce the topic, have students read the overview essay Japanese Incarceration.. This essay, from the Museum's Home Front curriculum volume, summarizes the mood of fear and atmosphere of racist panic that swept across the United States and US West Coast following the attack on Pearl Harbor. This essay can be complemented by The Home Front Glossary to help better explain the definition of some key terms such as 'Executive Order,' 'Incarceration,' and 'Due Process.' For this topic, have students concentrate on how such a massive and drastic violation of civil rights could occur and how Japanese American incarceration unfolded so quickly.

For an exploration of what life was like for Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of the incarceration centers, students can view The Home Front multimedia video Life In The Camps which intersperses primary source footage and interview segments from Japanese Americans taken from their homes and incarcerated during World War II. Get to know one of the over 100,000 Japanese Americans individuals incarcerated during World War II by introducing your students to the oral history testimony of Walter Imahara, a native of Florin, California, who, along with his family, was forced to leave his home and be transported to the Jerome Incarceration Center in southeastern Arkansas. To deepen understanding of the impact of incarceration on young people like Walter Imahara, students can browse the 1944 Rohwer Center Yearbook and read an article about this high school and the lives of its Japanese American student body held entirely behind barbed wire.

1944 Rohwer Center Yearbook cover, courtesy of ww2yearbooks.org.

Students can attempt to place themselves in the shoes of young Japanese Americans faced with the complex question of whether or not to serve the country that has incarcerated them and their families. For this question, have students view and vote using The Home Front What Would You Do? Scenario: Japanese Internment multimedia video which asks if they would fight for the United States during World War II if their own lives had been turned upside down as had the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans.

Finally, to learn more about the Japanese American military units and individuals who did fight for the United States and distinguished themselves in service during World War II, students can read about the heroics of future Senator Daniel Inouye as well as members of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

More overview essays, teaching aids, lesson plans, oral histories, and summary videos to help keep the story of World War II alive for current and future students can be found at ww2classroom.org. Additionally, through the Museum's Media & Education Center, teachers can further explore Japanese American experiences during World War II with their students by registering for the 'I AM an American!' Japanese American Internment in WWII Virtual Field Trip. The National WWII Museum solemnly joins with the Japanese American community in this year's Day of Remembrance and vows to remember now and every day.

Join The National WWII Museum at 11 a.m. CST on February 19, 2021 for " Setsuko's Secret: Heart Mountain and the Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration," a conversation with Shirley Ann Higuchi, JD, Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, and Rob Citino, PhD.

To view these multimedia videos, please login or register an account on ww2classroom.org to receive access to essays and lesson plans along with photographs, historic documents, audio recordings, maps, videos, oral histories, and other valuable teaching aids from The National WWII Museum.

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asian americans and pacific islanders in world war ii

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Japanese American Incarceration Education Resources | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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In the weeks and months following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the forces of the Empire of Japan, fear and suspicion concerning when and where the next attack on America would come spread uncontrolled and uncontained throughout the United States.

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Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution from the Asian American Education Project

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Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution from the Asian American Education Project

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2.1.1 Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution

Grade: Pre-K-6Subject: English Language Arts, U.S. HistoryNumber of Activities: 3 + Extension Activity

Japanese Americans suffered terrible injustices as a result of governmental policies that discriminated against them by treating them like enemies. In this lesson, students examine what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, what constitutional rights were violated in the process, and why such a massive injustice happened.

Students will be able to:

Describe the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Identify and evaluate the causes and effects of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Explain how the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans were violated because of incarceration.

Find evidences in primary and secondary sources to explain the constitutional violations.

Describe how the incarceration of Japanese Americans affected other Asian American communities.

Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution Essay:

After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, over 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in prison camps across the United States with the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That was almost the entire population of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. No charges were brought against them, and there were no hearings. They did not know where they were going, or how long they would be detained. Many families were separated, living and raising children in poor and harsh conditions. Despite most being U.S. citizens, Japanese Americans' constitutional rights were not recognized. Their loss of rights and freedoms included but were not limited to: right to be informed of the charges; right to legal counsel; right to speedy and public trial; freedom from cruel and unusual punishment; and right to equal protection under the laws.

How could such a massive violation of constitutional rights happen? Although provoked partially by concern for national security after the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese Americans had faced long-held racism toward them when they came after the Chinese were excluded in 1882. White supremacist groups lobbied to stop all immigration from Japan. California and other western states passed land laws to forbid Japanese immigrants from owning or leasing farmland. Newspapers, radio, and movies stereotyped Japanese Americans as untrustworthy. As Japan became a military power, the media depicted Japanese Americans as spies for the country, but none were ever convicted of spying. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor only increased existing anti-Japanese racism.

Despite being forced into prison camps by the U.S. government, an estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans joined the U.S. military to fight the Nazis. 18,000 men joined the segregated all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd participated in successfully liberating French cities from Nazi occupation and rescued Texan soldiers. The 442nd fought with a segregated African American unit, and drove German forces out of northern Italy. The 442nd became the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of the U.S. military.

Japanese Americans, against all odds, also fought for their constitutional rights. In one case in 1944, 23-year-old Fred Korematsu sued the United States on the grounds that his Fifth Amendment rights were being violated by ordering him to relocate. The Supreme Court decided that he could not be excluded from relocation because it was a military necessity that all Japanese be moved to prison camps from the west coast.

In 1983, a report by the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians found that the broad causes of Japanese American incarceration were racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. That same year, Fred Korematsu's case was overturned. Over 40 years later and after campaigning by the Japanese American community, the U.S. government finally issued a formal apology for violating Japanese Americans' liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed by President Ronald Reagan and provided reparations to those incarcerated during the war.

The Japanese American incarceration during World War II is a stark reminder that a racial minority's civil liberties can be easily violated in the name of national security. It provides a cautionary tale of the need for vigilance in safeguarding the civil liberties of all people, particularly racial minorities, and others targeted and blamed for problems by the dominant group.

Civil Liberties: Fundamental rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution¹

Curfew: Requiring people off the streets during particular hours²

Enemy Alien: A citizen of a nation that the United States is at war with³

Incarceration: The placement of people in a prison for a lengthy period of time. This term applies to and is used by Japanese American citizens, who were two-thirds of those in prison camps during World War II. The other one-third were immigrants from Japan; but were denied pathway to citizenship. At that time, Asians could not apply for naturalized citizenship, except people from the Philippines who had served in the United States military.⁴

Infamy: To have a very bad reputation⁵

Internment: The legal but questionable ability to put a group of people considered enemy aliens without a trial during wartime into prisons set up by the Army or Department of Justice (DOJ)⁶

Loyalty: Faith to a country, ideas or person⁷

Treason: Violating an oath of allegiance⁸

Reparations: Providing compensation to make up for a past wrong⁹

White Supremacist: A person who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races¹⁰

1. What is the responsibility of a government to its people during both times of peace and war?

2. How could the United States, while fighting fascism and tyranny abroad in Europe, violate the civil liberties of its own citizens?

3. Are there any circumstances in which it is okay for a democracy such as the United States to change/bend its governing principles of freedom and equality under the U.S. Constitution?

4. A popular saying is "History repeats itself." Could a forced mass incarceration, like what happened to the Japanese Americans, be carried out today with another group of people? Why or why not?

5. What similarities can be drawn between the Japanese American incarceration and U.S. immigration policies today?

6. What does it mean to be "American"? In what ways is Executive Order 9066 "un-American"? How did incarcerated Japanese Americans prove themselves to be "American"?

Activity 1: Identifying the causes and effects of the incarceration of Japanese Americans (Grades 2 to 6)

Making a Cause and Effect Diagram

Show this lesson's video and read the essay.

Distribute the Cause and Effect Diagram. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0yajHoZmLc1LkiuUwXSyjBZqKGqk6_XAUJsvcakkCQ/edit

Ask students to write "Japanese American incarceration" in the event rectangle in the middle.

Ask students to fill out the diagram with the causes and effects of Japanese American incarceration to individuals, families, and Asian American communities while watching the video and reading the Japanese American and the US Constitution Essay.

In pairs, have students review together and complete their diagrams.

Prompt students to think about how individuals, families, and the Asian American communities were affected.

After students have completed the Cause Effect Diagram, convene as a whole group and review their responses. Facilitate a discussion by asking students:

What were the negative effects of Japanese American incarceration?

What were the positive effects (if any)?

What lessons can we learn from the incarceration of Japanese Americans?

Activity 2: Identifying Constitutional Rights Violations (Grades 1-6)

Students' emotional connection to the Japanese American incarceration - Color, Symbol, Image Diagram (Grades 1-6)

1. Show this lesson's video and read the essay.
Prompt students to pay close attention to what happened to Japanese Americans after the Pearl Harbor attack and what constitutional rights of Japanese Americans were violated.

2. Facilitate a whole-class discussion by asking the following questions:

What did you learn from this video?

What happened to Japanese American families and how is this an example of violating Constitutional Rights in the name of national security by the U.S. government?

3. Distribute the Color Symbol Image Diagram.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gwpQoQhYGKrZoY7CcbgL9ZdQDWQ-yHJGJOsDZ3xj8R8/edit

Ask students to choose a color, a symbol, and an image that represents the experiences of Japanese Americans during WWII.

Working with partners, students explain the choices they made for each color, symbol and image.

Post the completed work around the room, and instruct students to participate in a gallery walk.

4. Constitutional Rights Violation Activity - Recording Evidences (Grades 2-6)

1. Review the Amendments with students. See a list in the Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution Examples.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QuNe5BnYon9Nbp2KRBgJG1UxqP-ZK2-xicIkkaGMtO8/edit

2. Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution Worksheets:
Three worksheets are provided. Choose an appropriate one for your students.

3. Complete the worksheets.

Break the class into small groups of 3 - 4 students each.

Allow students to work in groups and encourage discussion.

Ask students to look for evidences in the video, the essay, or other sources on how Japanese Americans' constitutional rights were violated.

4. After students complete the worksheets, review students' responses and facilitate a whole group discussion by asking the following questions:

What historical events, national sentiment, and lack of political leadership led to Executive Order 9066?

In what ways did the incarcerated Japanese Americans fight back?

Why are constitutional rights and freedom important, and how do we ensure that they are protected for everyone?

Activity 3: Japanese American Experiences in the Camps (Pre-K to 6)

1. Read a text about the Japanese American experience. This can be done via instructional read-aloud or via independent reading. The following is a suggested list of possible resources:

1. Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind. Author Cynthia Grady. Charlesbridge (2018) - (Pre-K-3)
The story, Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind, author Cynthia Grady sheds light into life at the incarceration camp through the correspondence between the children and their Librarian, Miss Breed. Before the children left for the camp, their librarian gave them books and asked them to write letters to her. In a letter from the incarceration camp, young Katherine Tasaki thanked Miss Breed for the book and picture she sent. The letter revealed that since her arrival, she kept getting sick. The poignant exchanges helped the children in the camp make connections to the outside world.

2. Fish for Jimmy: Inspired by one family's experience in a Japanese American Internment Camp. Author Katie Yamasaki. Holiday House (2013) - (Grades 1-4)
An adaptation of the author's family's true story reflecting the values of family bonding, love and courage. When Jimmy lost his appetite during the forced incarceration, brother Taro sneaked out of the camp every night to catch fish hoping that fresh food could help him become healthy again.

3. Fred Korematsu Speaks Up. Authors: Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi. Heyday (2017) - (Grades 4-6)
In Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, explore Fred Korematsu's activism and resistance to go to the Japanese American incarceration camp. He filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government because he felt that people should be given a fair trial before imprisonment. Even though he went to jail for his resistance, he did not give up his fight for justice.

2. Facilitate a whole-group discussion using the following prompts:

Feelings of anxiety and concerns about their future amongst the Japanese Americans during their incarceration were prevalent. Describe their experiences as documented in the video clip and texts. Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind.

Citing examples from the video clip and texts, describe how camp conditions affected the health and mental conditions of Japanese Americans during incarceration. Fish for Jimmy: Inspired by one family's experience in a Japanese American internment camp.

What evidence of turmoil amongst the Japanese Americans were mentioned in the video clip and texts? Fred Korematsu Speaks Up

Extension Activity: Analyzing Causes and Effects (Grades 5 & 6)

1. Explain what primary and secondary sources are:

Primary Sources: Eyewitness accounts of an event from someone who experienced it directly.

Secondary Sources: Secondhand accounts that interpret information from primary sources.

2. Analyze primary and secondary sources.
Organize students into small groups and have them analyze primary and secondary sources about Japanese American incarceration during World War II.

1. Guide students to conduct research on various primary and secondary sources.
A suggested list of sources is provided below [Note to Teachers: Review and adjust as needed for your students. For some students, do a guided close reading of these texts in order to help students infer meaning from the texts.]:

2. Distribute the Primary and Secondary Sources worksheet.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rAVxKlIxABkjCfIb38YPJ2TQJ-oYJedJExds0Y26CvU/edit?usp=sharing
Ask students to:

Write down their understanding of primary and secondary sources in the Definition row.

Write down the titles of the primary sources in the Primary Sources column, the secondary sources in the Secondary Sources column in the remaining rows.

3. Analyzing causes and effects:
When students have completed the handout, review their responses and facilitate a whole-group discussion by asking the following questions:

What are the causes or the U.S. government's reasons for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II?

Do you agree or disagree with these causes/reasons?

What were the effects of incarceration on Japanese Americans?

How were/are the overall Asian American community at the time affected by the incarceration of Japanese Americans? Can injustices be justified?

Manzanar War Relocation Center. National Park Servicehttps://www.nps.gov/manz/learn/kidsyouth/beajuniorranger.htm

Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/index.html

Japanese American Internment: 442nd Regimental Combat Team. MiraCosta College Library https://library.miracosta.edu/c.php?g=463915&p=4496082

Fred T. Korematsu Institute. https://korematsuinstitute.org/

Takei, G., Eisinger, J., Scott, S., & Becker, H. (2019). They called us enemy. Top Shelf Productions.

Uchida, Y. (1996). The bracelet. Puffin Books.

Warren, A. (2019). Enemy child: The story of Norman Mineta, a boy imprisoned in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Margaret Ferguson Books.

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Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution | lesson plan curriculum | The Asian American Education Project

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2.1.1 Japanese American Incarceration and the US Constitution Grade: Pre-K-6Subject: English Language Arts, U.S. HistoryNumber of Activities: 3 + Extension Activity Japanese Americans suffered terrible injustices as a result of governmental policies that discriminated against them by treating them like enemies.

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Japanese American Citizen's League Curriculum Guides and Resources

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Japanese American Citizen's League Curriculum Guides and Resources

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Copyright © 2022 Japanese American Citizens League Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is a non-profit, tax-exempt charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code

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Japanese American Incarceration from PBS Education

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Japanese American Incarceration from PBS Education

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Japanese American Incarceration | KSPS PBS Education Collection | PBS LearningMedia

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Through the power of video, KSPS Public Television aims to educate the public about the history and the lessons of the World War II exclusion, removal, and detention of persons of Japanese ancestry within the Inland Northwest in order to establish a legacy of rememberance.

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Curricula from Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i

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Curricula from Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i

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Curricula - Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaiʻi

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Browse and download educational resources from the JCCH’s expanding library.

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10 Documentaries about Japanese American Incarceration you can watch online for free from Densho

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10 Documentaries about Japanese American Incarceration you can watch online for free from Densho

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Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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10 Documentaries about Japanese American Incarceration you can Watch Online for Free Right Now - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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There are now literally a couple of hundred documentary films about some aspect of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Unfortunately, many of them…

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Vandalism of public art in Seattle's Japantown 'a punch in the gut', Seattle Times (2025 Jan 22)

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Vandalism of public art in Seattle's Japantown 'a punch in the gut', Seattle Times (2025 Jan 22)

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Vandalism of public art in Seattle’s Japantown ‘a punch in the gut’

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An art installation in Nihonmachi Alley commemorating the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was smeared with black ink over the weekend.

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"In an Internment Camp, All They Had Was Baseball. A New Generation is Back to Play" NY Times (4 Nov 2024)

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"In an Internment Camp, All They Had Was Baseball. A New Generation is Back to Play" NY Times (4 Nov 2024)

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National Archives: World War II Japanese American Incarceration

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National Archives: World War II Japanese American Incarceration

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World War II Japanese American Incarceration: Mass Removal and Incarceration

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Over 120,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast, along with a few thousand more transferred from American territories and Allied nations, were detained in camps located throughout the United States. Many federal agencies collaborated to develop and operate these new confinement sites. The records at the National Archives document the policies and implementation of mass removal, the management of the incarceration camps, and preparations for the inmates’ eventual release and the closure of the camps.

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All racial identities are interrelated. This timeline places Asian American history in the context of race, colonialism, and capitalism. Starting in 1441, time periods are marked by major historical shifts, and events are organized by overlapping struggles over land, labor, and empire.

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Japanese Immigration to the United States: A Timeline

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Japanese Immigration to the United States: A Timeline

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Japanese Immigration to the United States: A Timeline

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The year 2024 marks the centenary of the Johnson-Reed Act, which blocked all immigration from Japan to the United States. An overview of the movement of Japanese people to America.

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Timeline of Japanese American History and Vocab list from Japanese American National Museum

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Timeline of Japanese American History and Vocab list from Japanese American National Museum

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"Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II" National Museum of American History, Feb 2017 - July 2019

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"Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II" National Museum of American History, Feb 2017 - July 2019

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Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II

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This website is based on an exhibition that was on view at the National Museum of American History from February 2017 to July 2019.

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Written by Yoshiko Uchida. Illustrated by Joanna Yardley. Yoshiko Uchida draws on her own childhood as a Japanese-American during World War II in an internment camp to tell the poignant story of a young girl’s discovery of the power of memory.Emi and her family are being sent to a place called an internment camp, where

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Japanese American Incarceration: Camp Objects

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Japanese American Incarceration: Camp Objects

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Japanese American Incarceration: Camp Objects

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This topical collection includes objects used by inmates in Japanese American Incarceration camps. It is one in a series of collections, each containing different types of resources, about the Jap...

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Power of Words Handbook: A Guide to Language about Japanese Americans in World War II

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Power of Words Handbook: A Guide to Language about Japanese Americans in World War II

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Understanding Euphemisms and Preferred Terminology - National JACL Power of Words II Committee

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Ireizō - National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration

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Ireizō - National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration

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Ireizō | National Names Monument Honoring Persons of Japanese Ancestry Incarcerated in the U.S. During WWII

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National Names Monument Honoring Persons of Japanese Ancestry Incarcerated in the U.S. During WWII

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"A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata (2019)

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"A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata (2019)

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I think all things in life start for me with my parents. When I was a young child, we lived in Georgia and Arkansas towns where there were very few Nikkei-people of Japanese ancestry. All of them were always involved with the hard work of sexing chickens-separating male from female chickens shortly after they hatch. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. We were part of a small, self-contained community, where my family was my everything. I loved this protected, insulated existence. I loved chasing butterflies with my siblings, I loved going to the library with my mom, and I even loved burning garbage in our incinerator on Friday nights. I loved doing nothing.

It was very different from the way my mom and dad grew up. My mom grew up in Hawaii, with seventeen people living in three small rooms. My dad began work at nine, picking celery at his parents' tenant farm. Work was his life from then until he retired in his seventies. He and his second wife lived very modestly, but he ended up having to work extra-long because he was swindled out of their life savings. He was in fact a very naive, believing person. My parents were good people, who did everything they did for no other reason than to empower their children in building better lives.

In between all this working, my dad was incarcerated at the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona. I wrote about this place in Weedflower. He was drafted out of that camp and served as an interpreter in Japan.

But I knew there was another story of the camps, of the men who refused to be drafted, of the men and women who objected-oftentimes strenuously-to their treatment. After Weedflower came out, I felt inside myself a yearning to know more about these others. They too had worked since they were very young. They too were concerned about the future empowerment of their children.

I knew there was a stigma attached to these families who took a different path into the future, who renounced their citizenship, who were deported. This stigma seemed wrong to me. To me, people with very similar self-interests were put under a lot of pressure and ended up on different sides, in different camps, and ultimately in different countries. I'm proud of all of them, both "sides," of their strength and decency under extreme pressure, and of the different, difficult choices they made. Both Weedflower and A Place to Belong are my love letters to all of them, and to all of us as well, in making the difficult choices we face-soon, now, always.

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I think all things in life start for me with my parents. When I was a young child, we lived in Georgia and Arkansas towns where there were very few Nikkei-people of Japanese ancestry. All of them were always involved with the hard work of sexing chickens-separating male from female chickens shortly after they hatch.

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A four-century struggle to seek repair and atonement for slavery in the United States.

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"Go For Broke" (2012) from the U.S. Army

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"Go For Broke" (2012) from the U.S. Army

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"Go For Broke" (To risk all for one great prize)

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"Photos: 3 Very Different Views of Japanese Internment" NPR (2016)

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"Photos: 3 Very Different Views of Japanese Internment" NPR (2016)

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Photos: 3 Very Different Views Of Japanese Internment

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An exhibit at LA’s Skirball Cultural Center features photos that three photographers — Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and Toyo Miyatake — took at the Manzanar internment camp.

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Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (2021)

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Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (2021)

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Lesson plans and additional resources included.

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At the foot of the majestic snow-capped Sierras, Manzanar, the WWII concentration camp, becomes the confluence for memories of Payahuunadü, the now-parched "land of flowing water." Intergenerational women from Native American, Japanese American and rancher communities form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from Los Angeles. A co-production of the Center for Asian American Media and Vision Maker Media. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media.

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Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust - POV

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Native Americans, Japanese Americans and environmentalists defend their water from LA. A co-production of the Center for Asian American Media and Vision Maker Media. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media.

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"Baseball Saved Us" by Ken Mochizuki (1993)

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"Baseball Saved Us" by Ken Mochizuki (1993)

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Baseball Saved Us: 25th Anniversary Edition | Lee & Low Books

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Twenty-five years ago, Baseball Saved Us changed the picture-book landscape with its honest story of a Japanese American boy in an internment camp during World War II. This anniversary edition will introduce new readers to this modern-day classic.

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Picturing Incarceration: Kango Takamura's sketches and paintings

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Picturing Incarceration: Kango Takamura's sketches and paintings

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Tule Lake: Airport fence desecrates Tule Lake

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Tule Lake: Airport fence desecrates Tule Lake

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Opposition: Airport fence desecrates Tule Lake

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Proposals to build a fence around the Tulelake Airport are stirring opposition from Japanese-American groups and individuals who question its necessity and note it would run through the center of

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Japanese American Incarceration Camp Protests from Facing History

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Japanese American Incarceration Camp Protests from Facing History

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Japanese American Incarceration Camp Protests

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Read descriptions of protests that occurred inside Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II.

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Henry Sugimoto's Artistic Evolution from JANM

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Henry Sugimoto's Artistic Evolution from JANM

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Henry Sugimoto’s Artistic Evolution | Japanese American National Museum

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Step into the captivating world of Henry Yuzuru Sugimoto, a Japanese American artist whose journey from Wakayama, Japan, to Hanford, California, and ultimately to the bustling streets of Manhattan, influenced his diverse and evocative body of artworks.

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"Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray" Japanese American National Museum (2022)

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"Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray" Japanese American National Museum (2022)

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Toyo Miyatake's Photographs of Life inside the Manzanar Camp

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Toyo Miyatake's Photographs of Life inside the Manzanar Camp

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Toyo Miyatake’s Photographs of Life inside the Manzanar Camp

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During World War II, the photographer made surreptitious images of Japanese Americans incarcerated in California by the US government.

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Min Yasui (1916-1986)

Min Yasui was born in 1916 in Oregon. In 1939, Mr. Yasui, Second Lieutenant in the Army Infantry Reserve, graduated from University of Oregon’s law school and started a job with the Japanese consulate in Chicago.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mr. Yasui received an order from the Army to report for duty. Upon his arrival at the barracks, the Army told Mr. Yasui that he was unacceptable for service and immediately ordered him off the base. Mr. Yasui then returned eight more times to offer to serve, only to be turned away each time. On March 28, 1942, Mr. Yasui directly challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. With a copy of the curfew order in hand, Mr. Yasui walked up and down the Portland streets seeking to be arrested; he had his secretary call the police in advance to alert them that he was breaking curfew. When an officer told him to go home, he went to the station to demand arrest. He spent nine months in solitary confinement at Minidoka concentration camp near Twin Falls, Idaho.

When Mr. Yasui’s lawyers eventually appealed his case to the Supreme Court, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the curfew and convicted Mr. Yasui for violating Executive Order 9066.

Following WWII, Mr. Yasui relocated to Denver, Colorado. In 1984, Mr. Yasui’s new legal team filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis, requesting that his conviction be vacated on the grounds that the U.S. government had suppressed, altered, and destroyed material evidence during his WWII prosecution. Similar petitions were filed by the legal teams of Fred Korematsu and Gordon Hirabayashi. The court vacated Yasui’s conviction, but refused to review the claims of prosecutorial misconduct for a charge “forty years after the events took place.” Although Mr. Yasui’s lawyers appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, Mr. Yasui’s death in 1986 forced the federal court to declare that his case was “mooted” by his death.

A foundation in Denver administers an annual awards ceremony in Min Yasui’s name to honor his spirit of community volunteerism. A statue of Mr. Yasui also stands in Denver’s Sakura square.

(Source: Korematsu Institute at Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus)

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AAPI Civil Rights Heroes - Fred Korematsu

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AAPI Civil Rights Heroes - Fred Korematsu

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AAPI Civil Rights Heroes - Fred Korematsu

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Fred T. Korematsu (1919-2005)

Fred T. Korematsu was born in Oakland, CA on January 30, 1919. In 1942, at the age of 23, Fred 
Korematsu 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 was sent to the Topaz, Utah internment camp. Still, he chose to appeal his case, with the help of the ACLU of Northern California, 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.

Fred T. Korematsu was born in Oakland, CA on January 30, 1919. In 1942, at the age of 23, Fred 
Korematsu 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 was sent to the Topaz, Utah 
internment camp. Still, he chose to appeal his case, with the help of the ACLU of Northern California, 
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.

Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life. He became an active member of the coalition that advocated for redress for Japanese American incarcerees and he spent much of his time crisscrossing the country and speaking to students about his story. After 9/11, Korematsu continued to speak out, filing friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court on behalf of Muslim inmates being held in US military prisons.

In 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton. In 2010, the state of California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the US named after an Asian American on a state level.

(Source: Korematsu Institute at Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus)

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Mitsuye Endo (1920-2006)

Mitsuye Endo, a native of Sacramento, CA, was the only female resister of Executive Order 9066 whose case reached the Supreme Court, and Endo’s case was the only internment case for which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the plaintiff.

While incarcerated at the Tule Lake concentration camp in Northern California, Endo was contacted by civil liberties attorney James Purcell and asked to challenge her detention. With a brother in the U.S. Army and no connections to the Japanese government, Endo, previously a clerical worker for the state of California, was considered a perfect case for protesting detention. Purcell filed a habeas corpus petition on her behalf in 1942. The petition was denied after one year and Ms. Endo was moved to the Topaz, Utah internment camp. While in Topaz, her petition was appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually brought before the Supreme Court.

Both Ms. Endo’s petition and Mr. Korematsu’s case forced federal authorities to re-examine the constitutionality of Exclusion Order 9066. On October 11, 1944, the Supreme Court heard both Ms. Endo and Mr. Korematsu’s cases. However, the Court’s announcement of their decision of the Endo case was delayed until December 18, 1944 – conveniently one day after Roosevelt announced the end of the internment order. The timing reflected that the President, rather than the Court, ended incarceration first. The Court concluded that, given her loyalty to the United States, the government could not continue to detain Mitsuye Endo in the concentration camps, but did not state that the original incarceration conviction against Endo was wrong. This decision by the United States Supreme Court officially re-opened the West Coast for people of Japanese ancestry for resettlement.

Ms. Endo spent the rest of her life in Chicago, where she worked as a secretary and raised three children with her husband, Kenneth Tsutsumi. She passed away in 2006 at the age of 85.

(Source: Korematsu Institute at Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus)

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Japanese American Confinement Sites Education Grants

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Japanese American Confinement Sites Education Grants

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Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education Grants - Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program (U.S. National Park Service)

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The Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education (JACE) grants provide federal funding through a competitive process for large, impactful projects that educate the public about the historical importance of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, so that present and future generations may learn from Japanese American confinement and the commitment of the United States to equal justice under the law.

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Rudy Tokiwa recalls 442nd ordered to pass in review

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Rudy Tokiwa recalls 442nd ordered to pass in review

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442nd Regimental Combat Team Ordered to Pass in Review - Rudy Tokiwa

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AAPI Civil Rights Heroes - Yuri Kochiyama

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Yuri Kochiyama (b. 1921)

Yuri Kochiyama is a tireless political activist who has dedicated her life to contributing to social change through her participation in social justice and human rights movements.
She was born and raised in San Pedro, California but spent two years in a concentration camp in Jerome, Arkansas during World War II. Following the war, she moved to New York and married Bill Kochiyama, veteran of the all-Japanese American 442nd combat unit of the U.S. Army.

Yuri’s activism started in Harlem in the early 1960’s, where she participated in the Asian American, Black and Third World movements for civil and human rights, ethnic studies, and against the war in Vietnam. In 1963, she met Malcolm X. Their friendship and political alliance changed her life and outlook. She joined his group, the Organization for Afro-American Unity, to work for racial justice and human rights. Yuri was present on the day he was tragically shot and killed in 1965. In the Life magazine article “Death of Malcolm X,” she can be seen crouched in the background, cradling Malcolm X’s head.

In the 1980’s, Yuri worked in the redress and reparations movement for Japanese-Americans along with her husband Bill. Support for political prisoners – African American, Puerto Rican, Native American, Asian American, and progressive whites – has been a consistent thread in her work.

She has also won numerous awards, spoken at over 100 schools and colleges throughout the country, and has been featured in several books, films (including Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice and My America: Honk if You Love Buddha) and a television documentary in 2001 (Cool Women – directed by Debbie Allen – as one of several segments on a diverse array of women in the United States). UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center published her memoirs entitled Passing It On in 2004. A biography on Yuri’s Life, called Heartbeat of the Struggle, was written in 2005.

She is the mother of six children, and has nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

(Source: adapted from a biography provided by the Kochiyama family)

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June 2006, Watada refused to deploy to Iraq

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'I am an American' -- George Takei on a lifetime of defying stereotypes

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Asian Americans | Satsuki Ina Was Born American but Looked Like the Enemy

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For Satsuki Ina, the question of loyalty began when she was born behind barbed wire.

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A companion piece to Justice Deferred: Executive Order 9066 and the geography of Japanese American Internment.

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442nd Regimental Combat Team - Go For Broke

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It was an apt motto for the soldiers of the 442nd. As Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, and American-born sons of Japanese immigrants during World War II, they needed to put everything on the line to "win big."

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Japanese American Eastward Migration (1900-1970)

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Japanese American Eastward Migration (1900-1970)

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Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese American Internment Camp Newspapers

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Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese American Internment Camp Newspapers

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This story map requires JavaScript, but running JavaScript is not currently allowed by your web browser. If you wish to view this story, please enable JavaScript in this browser or try a different browser.

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Focused on the culture, art and history of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum the United States.

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The only pan-Asian art and history museum in the United States focusing on the histories, stories, art, and culture of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander people. Now offering Tours and three floors of community-based exhibits

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"Midnight in Broad Daylight" by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (2016)

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"Midnight in Broad Daylight" by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (2016)

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‘Midnight in Broad Daylight,’ by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (Published 2016)

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A Japanese-American family is separated by war and migration.

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Julie Otsuka books - "When the Emperor was Divine" and "The Buddha in the Attic"

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Julie Otsuka books - "When the Emperor was Divine" and "The Buddha in the Attic"

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Erinn B. Hartman, VP, Executive Director of Publicity, Alfred A. Knopf

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Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (1997)

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Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (1997)

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Personal Justice Denied

The following files link to pages from the publication, Personal Justice Denied.

Part 1 (December, 1982)
Part I, Nisei and Issei Part II, The Aleuts
Part 2: Recommendations (June, 1983)

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World War II Japanese Americans Incarceration: Justice Denied

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Personal Justice Denied The following files link to pages from the publication, Personal Justice Denied.

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Read 702 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Winner of the American Book Award Based on the author's own experiences, this award-winni...

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"Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind" by Cynthia Grady (2019)

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"Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind" by Cynthia Grady (2019)

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Write to Me by Cynthia Grady: 9781623541118 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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A touching story about Japanese American children who corresponded with their beloved librarian while they were imprisoned in World War II internment camps. When Executive Order 9066 is enacted after…

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"Dear Miss Breed" by Joanne Oppenheim (2006)

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"Dear Miss Breed" by Joanne Oppenheim (2006)

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Dear Miss Breed, the latest book from Joanne Oppenheim

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DEAR MISS Breed, my latest book, is the story of how one person can make a difference in the lives of so many others. It is also a story of courage and friendship told in the voices of those who lived through one of the darkest times in our country’s history.

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"Passing it On - A Memoir" by Yuri Kochiyama (2004)

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"Passing it On - A Memoir" by Yuri Kochiyama (2004)

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Passing It On - A Memoir By Yuki Kochiyama (2004)

Table of Contents

Family
World War II And Internment Camps
Work And Friendship With Malcolm X & Harlem Freedom Schools
Organization Of Afro-American Unity
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors
Civil Rights In The South
Third World, Anti-Imperialist And Anti-Apartheid Struggles
Native American Sovereignty
Puerto Rican Independence
Vietnam War
Venceremos Brigade
Asian American Movement
Japanese American Redress And Reparations
Defense Of Political Prisoners
National And International Human Rights Movements
Anti-War Movements

Description:

Passing It On - A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama is the account of Kochiyama, an extraordinary Japanese American woman who spoke out and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and whites for social justice, civil rights, and prisoner and women's rights in the United States and internationally for more than half a century. A prolific writer and speaker on human rights, Kochiyama has spoken at more than 100 colleges, universities and high schools in the United States and Canada.

"This is my grandmother's memoir. It expresses the primary values and themes that have guided and directed her life, and it describes some of the struggles, movements, moments, and people that have most significantly inspired her to become the person that she is today." - Akemi Kochiyama-Sardinha.

This memoir received the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for 2004. The award honored "authors and books that challenge ways of thinking and acting, that allow the many faces and facets of bigotry to replicate over and over again," according to Loretta J. Williams, former director of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.

Experpt:

I was born Mary Yuriko Nakahara on May 19, 1921, and raised in San Pedro, California, a predominantly white working-class neighborhood. Aside from my twin brother Peter, I also had an older brother, Arthur, whom we called "Art." My parents were Issei (first- generation Japanese) so our home life was traditional in that we spoke Japanese and ate Japanese food and were expected to behave as proper Japanese children. Outside our home, though, I was very much an "all-American" girl. As a teenager and young adult, I volunteered at the YWCA, the Girls Scouts, and the Homer Toberman Settlement House that served the Mexican community in San Pedro. I taught arts and crafts, tennis, first aide to teenagers at the Red Cross, and Sunday School at my local Presbyterian Church. The day Pearl Harbor was bombed--December 7, 1941--changed all of our lives. Every American, of whatever background, was affected. Before the war, I was seeing America with American eyes. What happened to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor made me see the world and America with entirely new eyes -Japanese American eyes. In many ways, this marked the beginning of my political awakening and development. What follows are my memories, reflections, and beliefs about some of the major events of my life, people I have encountered, and movements I have supported and been involved in. Although I focus mainly on the many people I have encountered, befriended, and learned from since I left San Pedro, my political convictions had already taken root while growing up in my hometown. I must admit that my passion and zeal to address human and social injustices were already taking shape within me as a young girl.

Reviews:

"A legacy of humility and resolve, vitality and resistance, and, perhaps most important of all, hope for the future." -- Angela Davis

"Insight into social conditions and social justice for all who are oppressed." -- Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for 2004

"Yuri Kochiyama has fashioned an extraordinary life of commitment to peace, equality, and social justice." -- Angela Davis

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Passing It On - A Memoir By Yuki Kochiyama (2004) Family World War II And Internment Camps Work And Friendship With Malcolm X & Harlem Freedom Schools Organization Of Afro-American Unity Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors Civil Rights In The South Third World, Anti-Imperialist And Anti-Apartheid Struggles Native American Sovereignty Puerto

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"Removed by Force: The Eviction of Hawai'i's Japanese Americans During World War II" (2025)

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"Removed by Force: The Eviction of Hawai'i's Japanese Americans During World War II" (2025)

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PBS HAWAIʻI PRESENTS / Removed by Force: The Eviction of Hawaiʻi’s Japanese Americans During World War II - PBS Hawai‘i

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Removed by Force: The Eviction of Hawaiʻi’s Japanese Americans During World II.The film sheds light on the relatively unknown experiences of the 1,500 Americans of Japanese ancestry from 23 geographic areas in Hawai‘i who were evicted, but not interned, during World War II.

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Seattle-based percussionist, composer, sound artist, educator, and Feldenkrais practitioner.

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Gambatte: Photography Exhibit Honors Survivors of Japanese Internment Camps (2015)

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Gambatte: Photography Exhibit Honors Survivors of Japanese Internment Camps (2015)

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Today marks the anniversary of Executive Order 9066. On this day in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the order creating military zones which would become internment camps for thousands of Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and German Americans. Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were relocated to internment camps, including 70,000 American citizens. In 1982, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) issued its report called Personal Justice Denied. The commission found that mass incarceration of Japanese Americans could not be justified by military necessity, but was largely motivated by "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

We'll talk about an exhibit at the California Museum called Gambatte, which features portraits of Japanese Internment Camp survivors then and now. We'll speak with Sacramento Bee photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. and Wayne Hironaka. Wayne is an internment camp survivor and a docent at the California Museum; he'll share his personal experiences.

LINKS:

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Photography Exhibit Honors Survivors Of Japanese Internment Camps

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Today marks the anniversary of Executive Order 9066. On this day in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the order creating military zones which would become internment camps for thousands of Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and German Americans. Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were relocated to internment camps, including 70,000 American citizens.

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"Behind Barbed Wire: The Search for Japanese Americans Incarcerated During World War II" by Paul Kitagaki Jr. (2020)

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"Behind Barbed Wire: The Search for Japanese Americans Incarcerated During World War II" by Paul Kitagaki Jr. (2020)

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BEHIND BARBED WIRE, The Search for Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII

The book Behind Barbed Wire is based on the nationally traveling exhibition "Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit."

Hardcover 152 pages and 137 Illustrations

Published by CityPress Files

Available August 2019

We are now in a second edition

Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, CityFiles Press

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Behind Barbed Wire Searching for Japanese Americans Incarcerated During WWII. - Paul Kitagaki Jr.

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The book Behind Barbed Wire is based on the nationally traveling exhibition "Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit." Hardcover 152 pages and 137 Illustrations Published by CityPress Files Available August 2019 We are now in a second edition Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, CityFiles Press

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In Shadows - Mako Kikuchi and Omoide (2025)

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In Shadows - Mako Kikuchi and Omoide (2025)

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We listened to "In Shadows" (track 2) during session #2.

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In Shadows 陰で - Mako Kikuchi and Omoide, by Mako Kikuchi