Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps 

Home and Family

Hum Fay, et al. vs. Baldwin, et al. records, 1898

In the 1860s, a devastating recession in Japan sent thousands of men and women heading toward the United States in search of new jobs and opportunities. Of the approximately 200,000 who first relocated to Hawaii, nearly all later moved to the West Coast of the US mainland to do agricultural work and operate small businesses. A pact between Japan and the United States in 1908 put a ban on unskilled immigrant laborers, slowing the influx of Japanese men and women relocating. These first-generation Japanese immigrants (known as Issei) and their American-born children (known as Nisei) still thrived in the face of a climate of racism and distrust that permeated US culture.
From the time of their arrival in the United States, Japanese immigrants, and other Asian immigrant groups, faced systematic discrimination from the American government and public. The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League (which later became the Asiatic Exclusion League) was established in May 1905. Other organizations followed, like the Anti-Jap Laundry League in 1908, which was formed by laundry worker unions with slogans asserting their need to maintain “the white man's standard in a white man's country” by boycotting Japanese-run laundries. Other organizations, like the Native Sons of the Golden West, would take anti-Japanese stances throughout the early 1900s, asserting that they needed to protect a California “given by God to a white people.” Legislation banned Japanese Americans from owning land or property, and laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924 banned "undesirable" immigration from Asian countries, including Japan.

1915, the Utah Japanese Association, forerunner to the JACL. All members were Issei and non-citizens as they were denied citizenship

Road to the Camps

Education and Sports

Employment

Religious Practices

Leaving the Camps Behind

"A number of SF Japs crowd Bush St. sidewalk in preparation for their transfer to evacuation center for them at Tanforan--Soldier escorts shown forground."--caption on photograph

After leaving their homes, many Japanese Americans were initially sent to temporary assembly centers that were hastily organized and poorly arranged. These living quarters were primitive and resembled military barracks. Many had previously served as racetracks and fairgrounds and retained the smells and physical evidence of animal life.
A former prisoner recalls the temporary quarters as sheds, with partitions dividing the sections that did not reach the ceiling. If anyone made noise during the night, as often happened with young children, it disturbed everyone. The toilet facilities were described as a pit with boards, the stench was overwhelming and sanitation was poor. Preparations were not made to properly accommodate the prisoners. These centers were a radical transition from the comfortable homes internees had left days before.
Through the summer of 1942, evacuees were sent by train from assembly centers to ten War Relocation Centers in undesirable areas in the interior: Minidoka (Idaho), Heart Mountain (Wyoming), Manzanar (California), Tule Lake (California), Granada (Colorado), Topaz (Utah), Gila River (Arizona), Poston (Arizona), Rohwer (Arkansas), and Jerome (Arkansas). As they traveled by train, they saw their familiar landscapes give way to the harsh climates of desolate mountains, deserts, and swamps. Approaching the camps, they saw that their new homes were surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards in towers. As the train pulled in, internees were confronted with the full extent of their new isolation.

Woodland, California. Filled with evacuees of Japanese ancestry

National Archives at College Park - Still Pictures

National Archives and Records Administration

"Happy, for the most part, were Japs who formed vanguard of evacuees. Here are some of the 500 on train."--caption on photograph