Japanese-American Internment Camps
A historical fact that is not really "common knowledge" is the fact that, during World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-American individuals, the vast majority of which were actually American citizens, were rounded up and shipped eventually to internment camps. These consisted of poorly-constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire, sentry posts and armed guards.
They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a "threat" to national security. They were also easily identifiable due to their race. There was no similar large-scale roundups of German or Italian-Americans, even though we were also fighting them during World War II.
These people were forced to abandon their businesses, their homes and, in many cases, their families as some individuals were taken elsewhere and held, again without trial, for years. The Japanese-Americans suffered severe economic losses, personal humiliation and, in a some cases, death, due to this relocation.
The relocation itself was ordered by the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and by an act of Congress.
The Japanese-American (Nisei) and the Japanese aliens (Issei) on the West Coast were rounded up and moved to assembly centers and then to internment camps. Few Japanese living in the East or Midwestern portions of the U.S., though, were treated the same way.
What is extremely interesting is that the Nisei and Issei living in Hawaii were not subject to a mass evacuation even though they formed a third of the population in Hawaii and were a lot closer to Japan than the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of the U.S.
The reasons they weren't rounded up were both cultural and economic.
"There was no mass relocation and internment in Hawaii, where the population was one-third Japanese American. It would have been impossible to transport that many people to the mainland, and the Hawaiian economy would have collapsed without Japanese American workers. "
-from the book Japanese American Internment Camps by Gail Sakurai, 2002
"Ironically, the territory with the largest Japanese population saw the least discrimination. More than one third of all residents of Hawaii had some Japanese ancestry. Japanese labor was considered vital to the civilian and military economics of the Hawaiian Islands. Besides, the views of Delos Emmons, military commander of Hawaii, were the opposite of those of General DeWitt."
-from the book Japanese-American internment in American History, 1996.
As noted in some of the other reviews, there were a very small number of people arrested and detained in Hawaii and a small number that voluntarily went to the mainland camps, but primarily so they could find relatives. There was not a single act of sabotage in Hawaii by the Japanese Americans during the entire war.
In addition, since there were so many people of Japanese ancestry already living in Hawaii, about a third of the population, racism was not at all the kind of problem it was on the west coast.
Although prejudice and discrimination played major roles in the internment, economics and jealousy did also, as many Californians were jealous of the economic success that the Japanese-American farmers and store owners enjoyed. Thus arose a lot of the anti-Japanese-American feeling in the same way that some people despise Jewish people, largely due to their economic successes. The hard work, self-sacrifice, and strong efforts by the Japanese-Americans and Jewish people are overlooked and ignored when people of prejudice proclaim their judgments against Japanese-Americans and Jewish people.
The fact that the internment did happen here in the U.S. is something to never forget since what has happened once could very well happen again, especially in these days of growing anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner feelings in the U.S.
Basic Statistical Information
 Relocation Center Data |
 Assembly Center Data |
 Relocation Center Features |
 Relocation Center Statistics |
 Agricultural Enterprises |
 Assembly Center Locations |
 All Locations |
 Typical Barracks Layout |
Misc.
Timeline of Events
What Term to Use?
Civil Liberties Act of 1988
Bits and Pieces, mostly from Seattle
May 28,1969 letter from Richard Nixon
Memorandum for the Director, FBI, relating to the internment of Hawaiian alien Japanese.
Interesting Presidential poster
Cincinnati Enquirer article from 2006
Definition of Terms
In the following book reviews I use certain terms without defining them every single time. These include the following:
Issei: people born in Japan who moved to the U.S. and settled here
Nisei: children born to the Issei, they were automatically U.S. citizens
Sansei: the children born to the Nisei
Kibei: People of Japanese ancestry born in the U.S. but returned to Japan to get their education, then came back to the U.S.
JACL: Japanese American Citizens League, a major, although controversial, national organization for Japanese Americans
Redress movement: the movement to get the government to apologize for what it did by interning the Japanese Americans and to provide the survivors with some form of monetary compensation
Assembly Center: Where people were initially held during the "relocation" process
Internment Camp: One of ten camps in various states where people were moved to from the Assembly Centers. Some sources use the term "concentration camp" instead of "internment camp."
AJA: Americans of Japanese Ancestry
There are over 100 book reviews below. They deal with Japanese immigration, growing prejudice against the immigrations, and the internment process, both before and after the internment.
Book Reviews and Synopses, by title
{A}
{B}
{C}
{D}
{E}
{F}
{G}
{H}
{I}
{J}
{K}
{L}
{M}
{N}
{O}
{P}
{Q}
{R}
{S}
{T}
{V}
{W}
{Y}
Books I haven't been able to get hold of yet
Magazines
Japanese Americans: Home at Last , April, 1986
Pictures from the Camps and Assembly Centers
Assembly Centers and other related areas
Centerville, California
Eden, Idaho
Fresno, California
Hayward, California
Los Angeles, California
Marysville, California
Mayer, Arizona
Merced, California
Mountain View, California
Other California places
Pinedale, California
Pomona, California
Portland, Oregon
Puyallup, Washington
Sacramento, California
Salinas, California
Santa Anita, California
San Francisco, California
San Pedro, California
Stockton, California
Tanforan, California
Terminal Island
Tulare, California
Turlock, California
Woodland, California
Actual Camps
Gila River, Arizona
Granada (Amache) Colorado
Heart Mountain, Wyoming
Jerome, Arkansas
Manzanar, California
Minidoka, Idaho
Poston, Arizona
Rohwer, Arkansas
Topaz, Utah
Tule Lake. California
Citizen Isolation Centers (for "troublemakers")
Leupp, Arizona
Moab, Utah
Old Raton Ranch/Fort Stanton, New Mexico
Justice Department Camps
Crystal City, Texas
Fort Lincoln, North Dakota
Fort Missoula, Montana
Fort Stanton, New Mexico
Kennedy, Texas
Kooskia, Idaho
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Segoville, Texas
U.S. Army Facilities
Angel Island/Fort McDowell
Camp Blanding, Florida
Camp Forrest
Camp Livingston, Louisiana
Camp Lordsburg, New Mexico
Camp McCoy, Wisconsin
Fort Bliss
Fort Howard
Fort Lewis
Fort Meade
Fort Richardson
Fort Sam Houston
Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Griffith Park
Honouliuli, Hawaii
Sand Island, Hawaii
Stringtown, Oklahoma
Federal Bureau of Prisons (for those convicted of draft resistance or interment-related issues.)
Catalina
Leavenworth
McNeill Island
Immigration and Naturalization Services Camps
East Boston, Massachusetts
Ellis Island, New York
Seattle, Washington
San Francisco, California
San Pedro, California
Sharp Park, California
Tuna Canyon, California
State Department Camps
Assembly Inn, Montreat, North Carolina
Bedford Springs Hotel, Bedford, Pennsylvania
Cascade Inn/The Homestead, Hot Springs, West Virginia (holding Japanese diplomats)
The Greenbrier Hotel, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia (holding diplomats)
Grove Park Inn, Asheville,North Carolina Ingleside Hotel, Virginia
Shenvalee Hotel, New Market, Virginia
Temporary Detention Facilities
These were leased or loaned from other Federal agencies and were used to hold enemy aliens on a temporary basis. They include: Chicago (4800 Ellis Ave.); Pittsburgh (Penn Armory); Nanticoke, PA (State Armory); Tampa Florida (specific place?); Miami Florida (Stadium); Syracuse, NY (former fire station); Niagara Falls (former immigrant station); Cleveland (former police station); Houston (former police station); Cincinnati (Post Office building); Milwaukee (House of Correction); Kansas City (Municipal building); Salt Lake City (county jail space); St. Louis (county jail space); Portland (county jail space); St. Paul (county jail space); Hartford CT. (Community Center building) and Los Angeles (Terminal Island).
Other information
Hoover discusses pros and cons of evacuation, Feb. 2, 1942 memo
Wartime Exile: The Exclusion of the Japanese Americans from the West Coast, U.S. Dept. of Interior, War Relocation Authority, Jan. 1, 1946
The Relocation Program, U.S. Dept. of the Interior/War Relocation Authority. Jan 1, 1946.
The Japanese in the Camps are Being Pampered!
No, they are Not being pampered!
Draft the Nisei!
Segregation of Disloyal Internees
"Disloyal" Japanese-Americans
Deportation and Relocation
Initial Controls and Plans
Totally misc. material
Films and film clips about the internment camps.
42 (Rap song)
A Challenge to Democracy (1944)
A Nisei Story
If Everybody Cared
Internee #1, #2
Japanese Internment (1942)
Japanese Internment in Canada
Japanese Internment Compilation tribute to Inada
Japanese Relocation (ca. 1943)
Masumi Hayashi exhibit
Strawberry Fields (movie)
Time of Fear
Various clips about the camps
Within the Silence
Yuri Kochiyama
Links
My thanks to Wes for the first link. Anyone finding other links that would be of good quality and relevent, please let me know and I'll add them here.
The Preservation of a People: A Look at the Evacuation and Relocation of the People of Japanese Ancestry in the United States during World War II
San Francisco Virtual Museum main page on Japanese-American internment, leading to numerous other pages
Seattle Times 1996 article on Japanese-American internment.
National Historical Publications and Record Division article.
Masumi Hiyashi photographs of the internment of Japanse-Americans
The War Relocation Camps of World War II: When Fear was Stronger than Justice
Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4417, Confirming the Termination of the Executive Order Authorizing Japanese-American Internment During World War II
Densho. Densho's mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished. We offer these irreplaceable firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images and teacher resources, to explore principles of democracy and promote equal justice for all.
CBC Archives
Relocation to Redress: The Internment of the Japanese Canadians. Covers Hiroshima, the internment of persons of Japanese ancestry, Canadian women in the Second World War, etc.
Historic Photos of the US Navy during World War II . This includes a number of various battles, nuclear testing on US Navy Ships, Bikiki Atoll 1946, etc.
Nisei help Germans escape. This is something I didn't find any references to in the books. Apparently a couple internee sisters helped some German prisoners-of-war to escape and were caught and then put on trial for treason. (The Oakland Tribune, Aug. 6, 1944). The article points out they are Nisei, which means they are American citizens and thus could be tried for treason.A rather unusual case of civilian aid to escaping German prisoners occurred the following month in Colorado. Two Afrika Korps corporals, who had escaped from Camp Trinidad, Colorado, were captured by the FBI several days later in Watrous, New Mexico. Among their possessions, the authorities found a photograph showing the two Nazis embracing three Japanese women who turned out to be Japanese-American sisters working on a farm near the camp. The sisters were Nisei who had been relocated from their homes in Inglewood, California, to the Granada Internment Center at Apache, Colorado, and who were, therefore, prisoners themselves. Whether their short relationship with the Germans was ideological or merely biological, the fact is that the Nisei girls aided their escape. At their well-publicized trial, in which the two Germans acted as witnesses against the girls, the jury returned a guilty verdict to the reduced charge of conspiracy to commit treason. The girls each received a two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine.
Book references at the bottom of the page may give you more info:
Nazi prisoners of war in America - Krammer
The Faustball Tunnel - Moore
New York Times
Sayonara!
John . Thanks for the information, John!!!!
Main Index
Japan main page
Japan and World War II index page
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