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historical perspectives (through the eyes of the people) 

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historical perspectives (through the eyes of the people) 

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Analyze books and other sources to gain insights into the encampment and the daily life of Japanese Americans during this time. Look at list of YA books to present facts as well as feelings from the people at the time.

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Evacuation to Relocation

With the forced removal of people beginning in March 1942, there was little time to build accommodations for them. Assembly centers were often fairgrounds or racetracks, with every bit of space-even unclean horse stalls-being used as housing. The ten custom-built WRA camps were little better, with bare wooden structures covered in tar paper hastily set up in desolate areas.

Morale was understandably low in general among the Japanese Americans, though initially there was a common feeling of patriotism in their sacrifice. Younger generations were more positive, as schools at the camps created a sense of normalcy and gave them the chance to relocate out of camp and build new lives at a university or at work. Those who had spent decades working in America to provide for their families, building homes and successful careers, however, faced the stark reality that they would never return to what they once had.

"The Photographic Section is maintained by the Government for documentary purposes only."
R. R. Best, Tule Lake Project Director, August 20, 1943

Photography of the internment process, facilities, and daily life was largely regulated by the government. Select photographers, such as Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, were hired to document the evacuation and relocation projects; personal cameras were forbidden to internees. Regardless of the photographer's wishes, all WRA photographs went through centralized processing where there was strict control over captioning and distribution-ensuring that mainly anonymous smiling faces were shown publicly.

The documentary film A Challenge to Democracy was one of many WRA promotional pieces intended to highlight the success of relocation and improve public perceptions of Japanese Americans for their eventual reintegration into society. The front cover shows seventy-year-old Sakutaro Aso and his grandson Shigeo Jerry Aso waiting to be deported from Hayward, California, in 1942. The back cover shows Hisako Hibi with her children Ibuki and Satoshi also waiting in Hayward to go to Tanforan Assembly Center.

Dispossessed was published by the American Friends Service Committee circa 1943-44. The cover photograph of a grandfather and grandson was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1942 for the WRA at Manzanar, California. With no personal identification, the pictured internees anonymously gaze at viewers whom the publishers hoped would donate goods to help improve the lives of those interned.

They Work for Victory, The Story of Japanese Americans and the War Effort is a pamphlet produced by the WRA in 1944, with a cover photograph taken by Tom Parker. Highlighting the WRA efforts to reintegrate relocated Japanese Americans into society, the cover features Ruth Nishi, a twenty-one-year-old operating a turret lathe to make parts for gas valves for the Bloomfield Mfg. Co. in August 1943. Originally from Berkeley, Nishi had been sent to the Poston Camp in Arizona before relocating to Chicago.

Azeka, Gotanda, Horiuchi Families

Taketaro Azeka-a barber by trade, but a poet and artist by practice-was the patriarch of the Azeka, Gotanda, and Horiuchi families. With far more trunks than they could carry, the families entrusted their possessions to their friends the Von Blon family. The letters from Azeka and his daughters to the Von Blons reveal camp life vividly; a reference letter Mrs. Von Blon wrote on behalf of Azeka's daughter, Shizuko Horiuchi, reflects the difficult procedures required to regain some individual freedom.

The Kumano Family

Chisato came to America in 1920 after marrying Takaji Kumano, who had emigrated in 1905. Although from a good family in Japan, with her little brother Yasamaru having been chosen as a playmate for Prince Akihito, Chisato and her family were evacuated from Palo Alto, eventually to find themselves in the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming.

In this letter to her friend Miss Minna Stillman, a librarian at Stanford University, she shares her pride in her family-one son leaving camp for college and her husband's gardening-as well as her strength in coping with the reality that word from her teenage son and brother in Japan arrived only sporadically.

Years later, Chisato's brother, Admiral Yasamaru Taniguchi, visited her family in Palo Alto from Japan. On the reverse of this photograph of the Kumanos with Taniguchi, she inscribed this poem to him in Japanese:

"Feel blessed that we are still alive to see and talk on and on to each other. / Is this a dream? / Went out to spring garden with you (Yasumaru [sic]) to view the Japanese apricot blossoms and scenery. / We reminisced our childhood life as an older sister with my younger brother: / We both successfully crossed over the mountain."

The Ono-Nagano Family

Born in California, Atsuko "Ann" Ono received her BA shortly before she and her parents were sent to the Fresno Assembly Center and later to the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas. But the harsh realities of camp life was not for her, and she was fortunately able to soon leave to attend the University of Michigan.

In Michigan Atsuko met Pat Nagano, a Stanford graduate who had escaped the Poston camp by joining Military Intelligence. They were soon married and had their daughter Karen at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, while their Japanese parents remained interned.

Internment Camp Ephemera

Daily life at the camps could easily become monotonous, with an unknowable future leaving some Japanese Americans few hopes and dreams to strive for. To combat this depressing reality internees and camp administrators tried to normalize routines and activities as best they could.

Along with work, schools, church services and their own community governments, internees were allowed regular recreational activities-including sporting events, theatrical performances, concerts, gardening and art exhibitions. Each camp also created its own newspaper, and the availability of a press meant they were also able to print their own programs and invitations for events.

This online exhibit is based on the exhibition, Voices from the Archives: Japanese American Internment, 1942-1946, presented in Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus, February-October, 2017

The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has placed copies of these works online for educational and research purposes. If you would like to use any of these works, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission. If you have questions about this resource or have concerns about the inclusion of an item, please contact the Hoover exhibits team:

For more information about rights and permissions please visit, https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/get-help/right-and-permissions.

© 2022 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.

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Voices from the Archives: Japanese American Internment, 1942-1946

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Experience the history of E.O. 9066 and its impact on Americans of Japanese ancestry through the words of those who were there. In speeches, letters, photographs, and ephemera, voices emerge from the archives to teach us about a dark chapter of American history.

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History as Histories
In this lesson, students make deductions about life in an internment camp by reading and comparing letters written to Clara Breed. Along the way, they consider the advantages of looking at a historical event from the multiple points of view of eyewitnesses.

The Japanese American internment serves as a good example of the prismatic nature of history. In all, some 120,000 people lived in the camps. There were, then, some 120,000 different versions of the internment experience.

There are special challenges in the study of letters as primary sources. Unlike most diaries, a letter is intended for another reader. The historian must consider, as your students will, the motivations and purposes of the writer, and the relationship between writer and reader.

The letters printed here were edited for length; misspellings were emended when they might have obscured the writer's meaning. We encourage you to read the collection of letters on the Web site of the Japanese American National Museum, where you will find the complete Miss Breed collection. You might choose to substitute letters or portions of letters that would better suit the reading level of your class.

The museum also offers an award-winning thirteen-minute video, Dear Miss Breed, which comes with an extensive teacher's guide. Ordering information is at www.store.yahoo.com/janm.

Materials
Printouts:

Read a letter written to Miss Breed

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Smithsonian Education - Lesson Plan - Japanese American Internment

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Smithsonian Institution lesson plans in History, Art, Science, Language Arts and Social Studies. Search for lesson plans by subject or grade. Smithsonian educational materials emphasize inquiry-based learning with primary sources and museum collections.

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Add:

"When the Emperor was Divine" Julie Otsuka

"Citizen 13660" Mine Okubo

"We are Not Free" Traci Chee

*Students pick one book. Present book in a presentation as well as a well thought out, well researched book report pertaining to the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Holds the history, specific locations as well as thoughts and feelings derived from each book. Each student has a different book and therefore a different perspective of the time. This means students are able to educate as well as converse with fellow students about their findings and beliefs.

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Japanese American Internment in YA & Middle Grade Fiction

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55 books based on 24 votes: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata, The Fences Between Us: The Diary of Piper Davis, Seattl...

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*find books at Heart Mountain for further research

*Documentaries about these camps

*journal or diary entries about camps that can further research.

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History of Japanese Internment Camps

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Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions | HISTORY

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.

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Resources from Heart Mountain

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Digital Resources & Archives - Heart Mountain Relocation Center

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Digital Resources, Photo Research & Online Archives: View sections of the Roster of those incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Powell, WY.

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Art made within the walls of Japanese Internment

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When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government took action at home. People of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to desolate inland areas of the U.S. Some 120,000 men, women and children were placed in internment camps for the duration of World War II.

Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

In Washington, D.C, the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery is exhibiting art and other objects created in those camps -- a grim yet handsome reminder of a dark chapter of American history.
'We Had No Furniture'
Norman Mineta grew up in San Jose, Calif., the son of Japanese immigrants. He went on to serve in Congress and eventually became commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, and transportation secretary under George W. Bush.

Mineta still has vivid childhood memories of his internment at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. He was 11 years old when his family was relocated to hastily built, bare barracks.

"We had no furniture," Mineta recalls. "All you get is four blank walls and one light bulb in the middle of the room and a black potbellied stove over in the corner ... and cots. That was it."

And so, in all 10 of the internment camps, people began making what they needed with whatever materials they could find. Scrap lumber became chairs, tables, dressers. Found metal became knives (they weren't allowed to bring sharp objects into the camps). And for fun, scrap wood was carved into small, painted birds.

Delphine Hirasuna, a third-generation Japanese-American, was organizing family belongings after her mother's death and found a bird pin that belonged to her mother, stashed away in an old wooden box in the garage. Lacquered, with shades of brown and yellow -- it was this pin that inspired the exhibit at the Renwick.

Hirasuna found many other trinkets from her family's time in internment, and began asking around for other camp-made objects. She began going house to house in California farm country.

"When I asked them if they had anything, they would go into their sheds ... and they would haul out this dusty box," Hirasuna says. "And the items in the box would still be wrapped in newspaper from 1945. So it was pretty obvious to me that they never looked at it when they brought it back from camp."
Looking Like The Enemy
A painted wooden carving of the Heart Mountain barracks, a model ship crafted of wood, wire and string, a carved and polished Buddhist shrine are all on display at The Art of Gaman exhibit at the Renwick gallery.

From the Amache internment camp in Colorado came a silk vest a mother made for her son who was going off to war. (Eventually, some of the internees were drafted or even volunteered for a special combat unit of U.S.-born Japanese-Americans.) The cream-colored vest is decorated with 1,000 red, French-tied knots.

"One person made each knot," explains Robyn Kennedy, chief of the Renwick. "This was passed around in the camp, and this was in order to provide strength and good luck for the person it was given to."

On the back of the vest a ferocious tiger is painted in orange and black ink. His hunched shoulders and sharp teeth show his strength.

"No one is going to go through that tiger to get this person's back," Kennedy says.

It's ironic that people of Japanese ancestry could fight and die for America, but in those post-Pearl Harbor days, they were also seen as a potential threat. They looked like the enemy. Families were told they were relocated for their own protection, but even at age 11, that made Norman Mineta wonder.

"You have guard towers every [200], 300 feet all around the camp with barbed wire, holding us in," he says. "You look up and you wonder: If we're in here for our protection, why are those machine guns pointing at us?"
'With Patience And Dignity'
The Art of Gaman exhibit provides striking visual evidence of how internees coped -- fashioning, by hand, arts and crafts that enhanced their difficult days.

" Gaman means to bear the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity," Hirasuna explains.

She began work on her picture and history book -- also called The Art of Gaman -- not long after Sept. 11, 2001. She says she is inspired by the way internees discovered their creative talent.

"It makes me wonder what we, all of us, have in ourselves," Hirasuna says. "Could we create things of beauty like that in adversity in such a situation?"

There were a few professional artists in the camps -- some of the internees had been illustrators for Disney. But most of the people in the camps had not created art or crafts before their internment -- and never did again. They went back to being doctors, dentists, farmers, shop owners.

To Hirasuna, their acts of creativity are also acts of courage -- "the quiet courage of people who are put in the worst circumstances, and they find it in themselves to rise above it and make things that are truly beautiful."

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The Creative Art Of Coping In Japanese Internment

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After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the U.S. government relocated 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the West Coast to desolate inland areas of the U.S. The Art of Gaman is a new exhibit that showcases works of art created by internees during this dark chapter of U.S.

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Art depicting Japanese Internment

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Japanese American prisoner art depicts life in WWII detention camps | CNN

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Work by imprisoned artists went on show at the home of US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, who described the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans as a "shameful" chapter in his country's history.

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Article and pictures of Propaganda

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How a Public Media Campaign Led to Japanese Incarceration during WWII | American Experience | PBS

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Images by photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams document this shameful moment in America’s history.

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History channel resource for Day 1!

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Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions | HISTORY

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.

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Timeline of Japanese Internment.

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WWII INTERNMENT TIMELINE

August 18, 1941
In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan.

November 12, 1941
Fifteen Japanese American businessmen and community leaders in Los Angeles Little Tokyo are picked up in an F.B.I. raid. A spokesman for the Central Japanese Association states: "We teach the fundamental principles of America and the high ideals of American democracy. We want to live here in peace and harmony. Our people are 100% loyal to America."

December 7, 1941
The attack on Pearl Harbor. Local authorities and the F.B.I. begin to round up the leadership of the Japanese American communities. Within 48 hours, 1,291 Issei are in custody. These men are held under no formal charges and family members are forbidden from seeing them. Most would spend the war years in enemy alien internment camps run by the Justice Department.

February 19, 1942
President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limited interest at the time, this order set the stage for the entire forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

February 25, 1942
The Navy informs Japanese American residents of Terminal Island near Los Angeles Harbor that they must leave in 48 hours. They are the first group to be removed en masse.

February 27, 1942.
Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee in Seattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they were in "concentration camps under military guard." Some credit Clark with the conception of what was to become a true scenario.

March 2, 1942
Gen. John L. DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 which creates Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 includes the western portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and part of Arizona while Military Area No. 2 includes the rest of these states. The proclamation also hints that people might be excluded from Military Area No. 1.

March 18, 1942
The president signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority (WRA) with Milton Eisenhower as director. It is allocated $5.5 million.

March 21, 1942
The first advance groups of Japanese American "volunteers" arrive at Manzanar, CA. The WRA would take over on June 1 and transform it into a "relocation center."

March 24, 1942
The first Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the Army is issued for the Bainbridge Island area near Seattle. The forty-five families there are given one week to prepare. By the end of October, 108 exclusion orders would be issued, and all Japanese Americans in Military Area No. 1 and the California portion of No. 2 would be incarcerated.

March 28, 1942
Minoru Yasui walks into a Portland police station at 11:20 p.m. to present himself for arrest in order to test the curfew regulations in court.

May 1, 1942
Having "voluntarily resettled" in Denver, Nisei journalist James Omura writes a letter to a Washington law firm inquiring about retaining their services to seek legal action against the government for violations of civil and constitutional rights and seeking restitution for economic losses. He was unable to afford the $3,500 fee required to begin proceedings.

May 13, 1942
Forty-five-year-old Ichiro Shimoda, a Los Angeles gardener, is shot to death by guards while trying to escape from Fort Still (Oklahoma) internment camp. The victim was seriously mentally ill, having attempted suicide twice since being picked up on December 7. He is shot despite the guards' knowledge of his mental state.

Hikoji Takeuchi, a Nisei, is shot by a guard at Manzanar. The guard claims that he shouted at Takeuchi and that Takeuchi began to run away from him. Takeuchi claims he was collecting scrap lumber and didn't hear the guard shout. His wounds indicate that he was shot in the front. Though seriously injured, he eventually recovered. May 16, 1942

May 29, 1942
Largely organized by Quaker leader Clarence E. Pickett, the National Japanese-American Student Relocation Council is formed in Philadelphia with University of Washington Dean Robert W. O'Brien as director. By war's end, 4,300 Nisei would be in college.

June 1942
The movie "Little Tokyo, U.S.A." is released by Twentieth Century Fox. In it, the Japanese American community is portrayed as a "vast army of volunteer spies" and "blind worshippers of their Emperor, " as described in the film's voice-over prologue.

June 17, 1942
Milton Eisenhower resigns as WRA director. Dillon Myer is appointed to replace him.

July, 27 1942
Two Issei -- Brawley, CA farmer Toshiro Kobata and San Pedro fisherman Hirota Isomura -- are shot to death by camp guards at Lourdsburg, New Mexico enemy alien internment camp. The men had allegedly been trying to escape. It would later be reported, however, that upon their arrival to the camp, the men had been too ill to walk from the train station to the camp gate.

August 4, 1942
A routine search for contraband at the Santa Anita "Assembly Center" turns into a "riot." Eager military personnel had become overzealous and abusive which, along with the failure of several attempts to reach the camp's internal security chief, triggers mass unrest, crowd formation, and the harassing of the searchers. Military police with tanks and machine guns quickly end the incident. The "overzealous" military personnel are later replaced.

The first inmates arrive at Minidoka, Idaho. August 10, 1942

August 12, 1942 The first 292 inmates arrive at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

August 27, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Granada, or Amache, Colorado.

September 11, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Central Utah, or Topaz.

September 18, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Rohwer, Arkansas.

October 20, 1942
President Roosevelt calls the "relocation centers" "concentration camps" at a press conference. The WRA had consistently denied that the term "concentration camps" accurately described the camps.

November 14, 1942
An attack on a man widely perceived as an informer results in the arrest of two popular inmates at Poston. This incident soon mushrooms into a mass strike.

December 5, 1942
Fred Tayama is attacked and seriously injured by a group of inmates at Manzanar. The arrest of the popular Harry Ueno for the crime triggers a mass uprising.

December 10, 1942
The WRA establishes a prison at Moab, Utah for recalcitrant inmates.

February 1, 1943
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is activated, made up entirely of Japanese Americans.

April 11, 1943
James Hatsuki Wakasa, a sixty-three-year-old chef, is shot to death by a sentry at Heart Mountain camp while allegedly trying to escape through a fence. It is later determined that Wakasa had been inside the fence and facing the sentry when shot. The sentry would stand a general court-martial on April 28 at Fort Douglas, Utah and be found "not guilty."

April 13, 1943
"A Jap's a Jap. There is no way to determine their loyalty... This coast is too vulnerable. No Jap should come back to this coast except on a permit from my office." Gereral John L. DeWitt, head, Western Defense Command; before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee.

June 21, 1943
The United States Supreme Court rules on the Hirabayashi and Yasui cases, upholding the constitutionality of the curfew and exclusion orders.

September 13, 1943
The realignment of Tule Lake as a camp for "dissenters" begins. After the loyalty questionnaire episode, "loyal" internees begin to depart to other camps. Five days later, "disloyal" internees from other camps begin to arrive at Tule Lake.

November 4, 1943
The Tule Lake uprising caps a month of strife. Tension had been high since the administration had fired 43 coal workers involved in a labor dispute on October 7.

January 14, 1944
Nisei eligibility for the draft is restored. The reaction to this announcement in the camps would be mixed.

January 26, 1944
Spurred by the announcement of the draft a few days before, 300 people attend a public meeting at Heart Mountain camp. Here, the Fair Play Committee is formally organized to support draft resistance.

March 20, 1944
Forty-three Japanese American soldiers are arrested for refusing to participate in combat training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, as a protest of treatment of their families in U.S. camps. Eventually, 106 are arrested for their refusal. Twenty-one are convicted and serve prison time before being paroled in 1946.

May 10, 1944
A Federal Grand Jury issues indictments abgainst 63 Heart Mountain draft resistors. The 63 are found guilty and sentenced to jail terms on June 26. They would be granted a pardon on December 24, 1947.

May 24, 1944
Shoichi James Okamoto is shot to death at Tule Lake by a guard after stopping a construction truck at the main gate for permission to pass. Private Bernard Goe, the guard, would be acquitted after being fined a dollar for "unauthorized use of government property" --a bullet.

June 30, 1944
Jerome becomes the first camp to close when the last inmates are transferred to Rohwer.

July 21, 1944
Seven members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee are arrested, along with journalist James Omura. Their trial for "unlawful conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet violators of the draft" begins on October 23. All but Omura would eventually be found guilty.

October 27-30, 1944
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescues an American battalion which had been cut off and surrounded by the enemy. Eight hundred casualties are suffered by the 442nd to rescue 211 men. After this rescue, the 442nd is ordered to keep advancing in the forest; they would push ahead without relief or rest until November 9.

December 18, 1944
The Supreme Court decides that Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was indeed guilty of remaining in a military area contrary to the exclusion order. This case challenged the constitutionality of the entire exclusion process.

January 2, 1945
Restrictions preventing resettlement on the West Coast are removed, although many exceptions continue to exist. A few carefully screened Japanese Americans had returned to the coast in late 1944.

January 8, 1945
The packing shed of the Doi family is burned and dynamited and shots are fired into their home. The family had been the first to return to California from Amache and the first to return to Placer County, having arrived three days earlier. Although several men are arrested and confess to the acts, all would be acquitted. Some 30 similar incidents would greet other Japanese Americans returning to the West Coast between January and June.

May 7, 1945
The surrender of Germany ends the war in Europe.

August 6, 1945
The atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. The war in the Pacific would end on August 14.

March 20, 1946
Tule Lake closes, culminating "an incrediblle mass evacuation in reverse." In the month prior to the closing, some 5,000 internees had to be moved, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, or mentally ill and with no place to go.

July 15, 1946
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is received on the White House lawn by President Truman. "You fought not only the enemy but you fought prejudice -- and you have won," remarks the president.

June 30, 1947
U.S. District Judge Louis E. Goodman orders that the petitioners in Wayne Collins' suit of December 13, 1945 be released; native-born American citizens could not be converted to enemy aliens and could not be imprisoned or sent to Japan on the basis of renunciation. Three hundred and two persons are finally released from Crystal City, Texas and Seabrook Farms, New Jersey on September 6, 1947.

July 2, 1948
President Truman signs the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act, a measure to compensate Japanese Americans for certain economic losses attributable to their forced evacuation. Although some $28 million was to be paid out through provision of the act, it would be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in which it operated.

July 10, 1970
A resolution is announced by the Japanese American Citizen League's Northern California-Western Nevada District Council calling for reparations for the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. This resolution would have the JACL seek a bill in Congress awarding individual compensation on a per diem basis, tax-free.

November 28, 1979
Representative Mike Lowry (D-WA) introduces the World War II Japanese-American Human Rights Violations Act (H.R. 5977) into Congress. This NCJAR-sponsored bill is largely based on research done by ex-members of the Seattle JACL chapter. It proposes direct payments of $15,000 per victim plus an addtional $15 per day interned. Given the choice between this bill and the JACL-supported study commission bill introduced two months earlier, Congress opts for the latter.

July 14, 1981
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) holds a public hearing in Washington, D.C. as part of its investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during Workd War II. Similar hearings would be held in many other cities throughout the rest of 1981. The emotional testimony by more than 750 Japanese American witnesses about their wartime experiences would prove cathartic for the community and a turning point in the redress movement.

June 16, 1983
The CWRIC issues its formal recommendations to Congress concerning redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. They include the call for individual payments of $20,000 to each of those who spent time in the concentration camps and are still alive.

August 10, 1988
H.R. 442 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides for individual payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee and a $1.25 billion education fund among other provisions.

October 9, 1990
The first nine redress payments are made at a Washington, D.C. ceremony. One-hundred-seven-year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angeles is the first to receive his check.

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Children of the Camps | INTERNMENT TIMELINE

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WWII INTERNMENT TIMELINE August 18, 1941 In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan. November 12, 1941 Fifteen Japanese American businessmen and community leaders in Los Angeles Little Tokyo are picked up in an F.B.I.

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A video on Japanese Internment

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This Man Filmed Life Inside an Internment Camp

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TedTalk video on Japanese Internment

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Ugly History: Japanese American incarceration camps - Densho

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life after internment

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In late October 1945, Kimiko Keimi and her 13 year old son, Harold "Hal" Keimi, left Heart Mountain, Wyoming, one of America's concentration camps, to return to Los Angeles. Although they were returning to their hometown, they were unable to reclaim their house, which was adjacent to the laundry that they previously operated in Hollywood. Instead, their final destination became a temporary trailer installation, which the federal government opened for Japanese Americans returning from America's concentration camps. The trailer that the two shared felt like anything but home. The same could be said for the room that they later shared within a San Fernando Valley home, which Kimiko received as part of her compensation for domestic work. For the first time, the Keimi family was forced to split apart.

In August 1945, oldest son Albert left Heart Mountain ahead of the family to start his final year at Hollywood High School. He would work as a schoolboy, doing chores for a family in Hollywood, in exchange for room and board. A month prior, Thomas, Kimiko's husband, departed for the Pacific Northwest to take up employment with the railroad. Once Hal recovered from the illness that kept him and his mother at Heart Mountain through the baseball World Series, which Hal listened to intently while he was in the camp infirmary, they qualified for indefinite leave. Kimiko likely hoped that the familiarity of their prewar home would make it easier to reestablish a semblance of a normal life again, as they awaited the day when they would be reunited with the rest of the family. Although Kimiko was distraught over her family's plan to split up, she knew it was necessary if they were to reestablish the life they previously led before the war. Kimiko and Thomas intended to regain stability for their family, but it would take several years before the family would be reunited. For the Keimis, like so many other Japanese American families, the continuous upheaval that began with the forced removal from the West Coast in 1942, continued with incarceration in temporary detention centers, later in America's concentration camps, and ultimately persisted into the postwar period.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which established a military zone on the West Coast of the United States and determined that the military had the authority to exclude anyone it deemed necessary. There was no specific description of who might be included, but it ultimately laid the foundation for the forced removal and subsequent incarceration of over 125,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two thirds of who were American citizens. While the Japanese American population was relatively small in comparison to the demographic makeup of the United States, the concentration of the population was disproportionately on the West Coast-in California, Oregon, and Washington. While the executive order was issued shortly after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, it was not solely in response to this one act. Instead, it was part of a continuum of a long history of prejudice and discrimination aimed at Japanese immigrants and their American-born children. Detention in America's concentration camps was never intended to be indefinite.

The objective of the War Relocation Authority, the government agency established to oversee the camps, was to break up concentrations of the Japanese American population on the West Coast by dispersing it widely across the country. Very early on, if incarcerees could demonstrate their loyalty and prove acceptance to a university or offer of employment and housing, they were eligible for indefinite leave. Initially, they could not return to the exclusionary zone on the West Coast. Instead, the War Relocation Authority used promotional brochures and pamphlets, to entice incarcerees to resettle in cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit, and New York.

In December 1944, a test case known as Endo v. United States went before the US Supreme Court to challenge the ongoing mass detention of Japanese Americans, solely on the basis of race. Mitsuye Endo, who was a California state employee prior to World War II, claimed that exclusion from the West Coast prevented her from continuing with her employment. The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Endo, but was quite careful not to address the topic of constitutional rights. The Supreme Court ruling resulted in the War Department issuing a statement saying that persons of Japanese ancestry..."would be permitted the same freedom of movement throughout the United States as other loyal citizens and law-abiding aliens," effective January 2, 1945.

Although former incarcerees were allowed to return to the West Coast, the arrival of returnees was slow at first. Prior to the war, approximately 36,000 Japanese Americans resided in Los Angeles County. Yet, fewer than 300 had returned to the formerly restricted territory a month after it had reopened. By August, the number was up to approximately 2,000 and was projected to increase to 3,000 by the end of the year.

Fears of impending violence and discrimination towards Japanese Americans on the West Coast spread amongst incarcerees, causing many to feel apprehensive about reintegrating into mainstream society and returning to the West Coast. Prejudice became exacerbated on the West Coast during the war, even though people of Japanese ancestry had summarily been removed. It continued to grow, despite the Allied Forces' success in the Pacific and European theaters and the contributions of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all Japanese American segregated military unit, on the front lines.

Others, who were forced to liquidate their businesses, give up their homes, and sell their material possessions prior to the forced removal, felt they had nothing to return to on the West Coast. With little choice, they decided to make home again elsewhere.

Nine months after the exclusionary ban was lifted on the West Coast, the War Relocation Authority set deadlines at the end of the year to close the camps, with the exception of Tule Lake concentration camp in California. Yet, with some 55,000 Japanese Americans remaining in America's concentration camps as of April 1945, the WRA staff decided to go against its overarching objective, by returning remaining incarcerees to their point of origin. By October, government officials projected that 12,000 to 15,000 individuals would return to Los Angeles County by the end of the year. The majority of those who returned to the West Coast towards the end of 1945-mostly older adults, families with young children, and individuals without families, were prompted by the WRA's directive.

Returnees arrived to find that the prejudice they encountered before the war did not vanish simply because the United States was no longer at war with Japan. Yet, while returning to a hostile social climate proved difficult, the most pressing challenges centered on securing housing and employment. The housing shortage, which was a challenge prior to the war, became the most acute issue in California. The combination of migrants who arrived during the war, GIs making their way home from overseas, and returning Japanese Americans who had been forcibly removed during the war added further strain to the housing situation. Hostels, hotels, and trailer installations provided temporary shelter for returning Japanese Americans who had no other options. Racial housing covenants continued to put restrictions on where Japanese and other people of color could purchase homes. Similarly, prejudice limited the job opportunities for returning Japanese Americans, relegating them mostly to work in domestic service, gardening, and the garment industry.

And yet, despite the arduous challenge that Japanese Americans faced upon returning to the West Coast, they persisted. Even though the federal government intended to break up concentrations of the Japanese American population on the West Coast, the population nearly returned to its prewar numbers. Churches and temples, community centers, cultural institutions, businesses, and Japanese language schools helped to anchor the Japanese American community once again. Former incarcerees deliberately decided not to dwell on the past and chose to look forward, instead.

While this mentality may have helped the community to rebuild, it had its consequences. The pain and trauma that Japanese Americans experienced during World War II has continued to affect subsequent generations. The healing process continues today, long past the formal apology and reparations that came with redress. It remains important to focus on this aspect of US history-not just to remember, but also to ensure that this never happens again. This episode in history is a reminder of the fragility of our Constitution and the need to safeguard civil liberties for all.

Meet the Author

Kristen Hayashi, PhD is a public historian as well as director of collections management and access and a curator at the Japanese American National Museum. Her area of research examines the resettlement of Japanese Americans in post-WWII Los Angeles, following their return from America's concentration camps.
Note on Terminology:
The Japanese American National Museum as well as scholars of the WWII incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the United States refer to the 10 camps where civilians were incarcerated as America's concentration camps, rather than internment camps. Government officials all the way up to President Franklin D. Roosevelt initially referred to them as "concentration camps." The federal government soon began to refer to them euphemistically as "internment camps." Internment, however, refers to the detention of "civilian enemy nationals." The majority of Japanese and Japanese American incarcerees who were detained amongst the ten "War Relocation Centers," which the War Relocation Authority administered, were US citizens by birth. Using the term "internment camp" for the 10 War Relocation Centers, which infers the detention of enemy aliens, is misleading. Additionally, the Department of Justice operated camps detained "enemy aliens," mostly Japanese immigrants, but also Italians and Germans, as well. Japanese immigrants were considered "aliens ineligible for citizenship" because of discriminatory legislation that excluded non-whites from naturalization. "America's concentration camps" is a nuanced term to describe the camps here in the United States and distinguish them from the concentration or death camps in Europe. For more on terminology, visit Power of Words.
Foot Notes and Further Reading
Harold Keimi, interview by Kristen Hayashi and Steve Nagano, 29 Aug 2017. Details regarding the Keimi family's indefinite leave were gleaned from the War Relocation Authority's "Final Accountability Roster" for Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Recent scholarship is estimating the number of incarcerees detained in both the War Relocation Authority-administered camps and Department of Justice camps to be closer to 125,000.

Brian Niiya, ed. "Endo, Ex Parte," Encyclopedia of Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present, Japanese American National Museum, 2001: 159-60.

Robert Sullivan, "Japanese-Americans Trickling: Evacuees Slow to Stick Necks Out as Ban on West Coast is Lifted," (publication unknown) 4 Feb 1945. UCLA Special Collections, Melvin P. McGovern Papers, Collection 2010, Box 120, Folder 10.

Letter from Earl L. Kelley, District Relocation Officer to Hon. Helen Douglas, Congresswoman, 3 Aug 1945. National Archives, PI-77 47, Box 75, Folder 301.3.

"1,438 Evacuees Back on Coast, Myer Reports," Pacific Citizen,Vol. 20, No. 15, 14 April 1945. Speech by Paul Robertson, WRA (Southern California) Area Supervisor, 18 Sept 1945. National Archives, PI-77, Box 76, Folder 315.

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asian americans and pacific islanders in world war ii

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The Return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast in 1945 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, that ultimately laid the foundation for the forced removal and subsequent incarceration of over 125,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two thirds of whom were American citizens.

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Photo for lesson 2

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Wonder woman fighting Japanese. Propaganda for kids

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In this issue, Wonder Woman fights some asian stereotypes and mole men.

We begin the adventure meeting Mae Wu, a chinese girl that was tortured by the japanese army, they also took the females in her village to concentration camps. She's now in the USA and helps in a propaganda campaign against the Japanese, weaponizing her scars. She goes to Diana so she can help her get rid of them (she can't, she's a nurse and not a doctor).

Later, Diana finds her dead on the street, she was seemingly attacked by a crazy man who sent a letter to warn them. Wonder Woman takes her speedily to her amazon friends so they can bring her back.

Continuing with Paula's arc, the ex-villainess finds herself training on the island. She became a strong and intelligent woman. In fact, she wins an amazon contest and proves to be ready to go and fight in the world of man (the contest predictably involves being tied up).

Once Mae is revived, Diana realizes she was liberated by the Japanese in a suspiciously easy way. She finds out the Japanese are planning to attack America, the scars are actually a cryptic message that indicates the date of the attack.

Wonder Woman joins Trevor to attack the invaders. She infiltrates the japanese and stops their plans to create a germ named "womania" that drives women crazy, making them hate men and attack every male they see. She frees the virus and uses it against the japanese, saving the day.

In the second story, Diana and Etta command a band of amazon girls for the military boys, but suddenly, the ground opens up and swallows the girls. Wonder Woman and Paula go inside and try to rescue them underground.

Once inside, they realize the women are prisoners of the mole men, who enslaved the females of their own species as well. Soon, Wonder Woman becomes another slave, but begins a revolution along with the amazons and mole women against the males.

Wonder Woman cures the mole king's blindness so he can see the female beauty of his lover, he understands the power of women and changes his mind about the whole "slaving girls" thing. Actually, they change roles and he becomes her slave.

Eventually, they are rescued by Trevor and the men on the surface who have been looking for them.

It's a fun chapter but they could have gone further and injected more action to the female revolt.

In this third story, Wonder Woman captures a spy who works for some businessmen who manufacture rubber and refuse to help the army for free. She listens to their selfish plans during a secret meeting, however, they are alarmed by the spy and they flee.

Diana then decides to go with her amazon friends, who are testing a machine that allows them to enter the subconscious mind of people and see what they really think of themselves and others in a visual manner.

Meanwhile, Paula is just about to finish her training to be an amazon.

Wonder Woman finds out the spy is in danger and tries to rescue her from the claws of the villains, in this case her boyfriend and the evil millionaire who mistreats her.

Diana traps the men and quickly and inspects them mentally in the machine. Diana and her partners laugh at their male egos and their fantasies.

After that, Diana makes one of the men summit to female power, everything goes well at first but the woman becomes too soft with her slave and frees him, he tries to take advantage of this and captures Wonder Woman and his girlfriend. Diana finds herself in trouble but eventually frees herself by using her strength and cleverness.

Wonder Woman captures the evil guys. In fact, she makes them slaves against their will with the amazonian machine and makes them do the right thing.

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Wonder Woman (1942): The original run (Part 4)

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In this issue, Wonder Woman fights some asian stereotypes and mole men. We begin the adventure meeting Mae Wu, a chinese girl that was tortu...

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The Political Influence of Comics in America During WWII | SAGU

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Did you know that comic books were used as propaganda during World War II? While adults were targeted through posters and short films that were shown before movies, American children were targeted through some of our most prominent superheroes to date such as Captain America, Superman, Batman and se…

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Images and Imaginings of Internment: Comics and Illustrations of Camp

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Images and Imaginings of Internment: Comics and Illustrations of Camp: Exhibition Map

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You are welcome to explore the virtual exhibition by clicking through each section in order or by choosing your own path. You can also find the exhibition map by hovering over the hamburger menu ...

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Batman and Japanese Propaganda: student engagement

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If you've been on social media or YouTube over the last decade, chances are that you've seen people complaining about the political plotlines and messages in modern superhero stories. "I just want to enjoy superhero stories without politics!" is a fairly common gripe - mostly from a subset of the audience that disagrees with whatever the perceived message might be.

But superhero stories have always been political, right back to the dawn of the genre. From Captain America punching Hitler in 1941 to Homelander symbolizing American arrogance and power on The Boys to Robert Pattinson learning how to be a responsible progressive billionaire in The Batman, superheroes have been entrenched in the biggest political debates of their eras. And that goes all the way back to the first terrible theatrical Batman adaptation.

An Evening With Batman and Robin

In 1943, Columbia Pictures released Batman, a serial shown in theaters across the United States. It stands as the first live-action depiction of the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder, starring Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft, the youngest actors to play Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.

Today, the 1943 Batman looks like a low-budget serial, but Columbia Pictures put a great deal of focus and effort into its marketing back in its day, periodically re-releasing it and the 1949 follow-up, Batman and Robin, as "An Evening With Batman and Robin." These successful re-airings kept Batman in the public eye, right until Adam West took up the cowl in the 1960s.

The 1943 serial introduced some key elements of Batman lore to film audiences for the first time, including the Bat Cave (sometimes called the "Bat's Cave") and Alfred's redesign. (Prior to the serial, Alfred was portly - a far cry from his elegant, thin iteration in modern comics.)

While the serial was popular among audiences upon release, critics saw the whole thing as farcical. Critic Raymond William Stedman wrote in his 1971 book The Serials; Suspense and Drama By Installment, "This wartime serial garnered some good press notices, although, from the vantage point of the 1970s, it scarcely deserved them."

The 1943 Batman featured cheesy effects, with unconvincing acting from both Wilson and Croft. The serial also lacks any appearances from Batman's iconic rogues gallery. Joker, it seems, was cast at one point in the serial, judging by early promotional material, before Columbia opted to present an original villain, Doctor Daka, as Batman's adversary.

But while the 1943 Batman was missing Catwoman, Penguin, and the like, it wasn't missing out on a political angle. Like many wartime serials, it was political propaganda presenting America as the single force standing up against unrelenting tyranny. And it got across that message via horrendous Yellow Peril stereotypes, justifying one of the cruelest chapters in American history.

Doctor Daka and Yellow Peril

When people discuss 1943's Batman in the modern era, they often point out its overt racism, particularly in the characterization of Doctor Daka. He's a Japanese nationalist and loyal soldier under Emperor Hirohito. He forms an alliance with Gotham's criminal underworld, using them to help develop an atom-smasher that can dismantle America's infrastructure. He turns people into zombies to manipulate them into assisting him. He's a true threat, but the serial credits that not to the usual complicated Batman villain motivations, but due to his Japanese origins. His henchmen often use slurs when referring to him. Batman, upon confronting Daka, immediately calls him "a Jap."

Daka might as well have been named Fu Manchu, as he represents the same brand of Yellow Peril paranoia. It likely goes without saying that Daka isn't played by a Japanese actor, but by decidedly white actor J. Carrol Naish. Naish was eventually nominated for multiple Oscars (including for playing an Italian man in 1943's Sahara), but here, he plays Daka as an Orientalist caricature. He speaks in a high-pitched voice with an exaggerated accent, and takes a passive role, hiding behind henchman - meant to contrast with Batman's comparative masculinity as a fearless fighter.

With America at war with Japan, Columbia wanted a symbolic figure of war for Batman to defeat. In this serial, Batman is treated as a stand-in for American virtue, while Daka is the evil foreign force - a proxy for the real-world target of the American war machine at that time. All of which turned the 1943 Batman into a feel-good story, designed to reinforce confidence in America's war effort and help vilify America's enemy. But it does so in ways that not only promote racial stereotypes, but also specifically justify some of America's wartime atrocities during the war.

America, right and never wrong

Batman 1943 takes the political stance that America is always right, and anyone who disagrees is a disruptor who needs to be silenced. Daka is evil because he stands with his country against America. His henchmen are evil because they're all criminal hirelings, as well as traitors to their country. By contrast, one potential henchman, who Daka kidnaps straight from jail, refuses to surrender to Daka out of pride for the American way. Daka uses his technology to extract the information he wants from this man, then turns him into a machine-controlled zombie.

Anti-Japanese imagery is baked into the serial's setting and background. Daka's lair is located in Little Tokyo, in the "Japanese House of Horrors," a wax museum filled with depictions of Japanese soldiers capturing and killing Americans. Many of the wax statues are secretly Daka's guards. The House of Horrors depicts is built around making Japanese people look frightening and monstrous - not just because they might murder American soldiers, but because they have a museum celebrating such killings.

Worst of all, Batman justifies America's internment camps, which disrupted more than 120,000 lives during World War II, as peaceful American citizens were incarcerated due to their cultural background. As the narration over the introduction of Daka's lair and Little Tokyo says:
"This was part of a foreign land, transplanted bodily to America and known as Little Tokyo. Since a wise government rounded up those shifty-eyed Japs, it has become virtually a ghost street, where only one business survives, eking out a precarious existence on the dimes of curiosity-seekers."
Under internment, Japanese-Americans were forced to sell off their property - losing businesses, vehicles, and personal possessions - before being locked behind barbed wire for four years and given Loyalty Tests to determine their dedication to America. It was common to find that camp incarcerees were horrified that the government thought they weren't loyal American citizens. While the tests generally proved that the people in the camps posed no threat, internment lasted until 1946.

Batman and Robin, however, see the Japanese as enemies of the United States. Batman's use of a racial slur in particular is a low point for the character, a siding with paranoid bigotry that was demonstrably unfounded even in its day.

Fair for its time? Not quite.

Many people justify the racist standards of older media by saying it's just "standard for its time." In this case, it isn't true: Yellowface performances like Naish's were controversial and criticized even back in the 1940s. And other superhero serials and adaptations from this era exoticized or misunderstood foreign cultures, but rarely villainized them in this extreme manner.

1941's Adventures of Captain Marvel, one of the first superhero serials ever, sets Billy Batson against the Scorpion, a scientist transformed by ancient Siamese magic when he wrongfully broke into an ancient tomb. He's ultimately defeated when the people of Siam turn the magic against him yet again. While Siam - now modern-day Thailand - is treated as an exotic foreign culture, it isn't subject to constant slurs and dehumanization.

And 1946's famous Superman radio series Adventures of Superman, which pitted Superman against the Ku Klux Klan in the 16-part serial "Clan of the Fiery Cross," took pains to portray Chinese-American characters in sympathetic roles, as one of the minorities threatened by the Klan. In this case, Superman came out against racism, exposing the Klan's real-world codewords and hateful practices to an audience who otherwise might not have been aware of them. This information was gathered by Stetson Kennedy, an activist investigating the Klan. Unlike 1943's Batman, which justifies bigotry, "Clan of the Fiery Cross" was aimed at fighting it. (Though it's notable that the reasoning was still nationalist - China was America's ally against Japan in the war, and pro-Chinese sentiment was as much a part of the war effort as anti-Japanese messaging.) Meanwhile, later serials, including 1948's Superman, focused less on race and political moments, and more on generic supervillains.

The 1943 Batman stands as an anomaly - a point where Batman was used to promote xenophobic nationalism. Experiencing the serial is like traveling back in time in all the worst ways. Its dreadfully slow pacing and overly simplistic plotting leaves audiences with little to enjoy. In an era where even the worst Batman stories manage to be memorable, this serial is utterly forgettable, apart from its startling racism.

But it's important not to forget the history of our most iconic characters. It's important to see how far we've come in terms of storytelling. Gone are the days where audiences were satisfied watching Batman punch gangsters whose fedoras seemed glued to their receding hairlines. Cinema has raised our standards, and Batman's cinematic debut just doesn't meet them.

There is no Batman story quite like the 1943 serial. Maybe that makes this nearly 80-year-old story unique. Maybe that just makes it a disaster. The closest modern Batman has come to reaching the overt racism of the old serial is when Frank Miller tried to pitch his graphic novel Holy Terror as a Batman story. DC was leery about publishing the comic. They were right to be wary.

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The first live-action Batman was pure political propaganda

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Batman and Robin's first adaptation from comics to screen came in 1943, in the form of a movie serial that vilified Japanese Americans with the racist language of wartime propaganda. Seen today, it's a strange part of Batman history. The 1943 Batman is streaming free online.