US History

The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

Asian Americans

Migration

Law and Government

This collection uses primary sources to explore Japanese American internment during World War II.

A painting titled “News of Pearl Harbor” by artist Henry Sugimoto, 1942.

Henry Sugimoto was a Japanese artist who immigrated to the United States in 1919. During World War II, he was interned first at Jerome and then at Rohwer Relocation Centers. At the camps, he painted, first in secret and then more openly, approximately one hundred works. 


A poster captioned “All the ear-marks of a sneaky Jap! Don't discuss your job!,” created by the US War Production Board, 1942-1943.

A resolution passed by the Japanese American Citizens League about Japanese American loyalty to the United States, December 22, 1941.

A photograph of a Japanese-owned store hosting an “evacuation sale” prior to relocation, 1942.

A photograph of a Japanese American woman arriving at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California, 1942.

The US government used Tanforan Racetrack site as a temporary assembly center for Japanese Americans on their way to relocation centers in the US interior. While waiting for relocation, some 8,000 Bay Area Japanese Americans were processed here in the spring of 1942.


A letter from Kenji Okuda to Norio Higano from Camp Harmony about his feelings on internment on Memorial Day, May 30, 1942.

Camp Harmony was a name for the Puyallup Assembly Center, organized in May 1942 on the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington. More than 7,000 Japanese Americans from Washington and Alaska were sent there before being transferred to Tule Lake, Minidoka, and Heart Mountain Relocation Centers.

A letter from a teacher in Stockton, California about her student “Jimmie” who was sent to a relocation center, 1942.

A column, excerpted from the *Manzanar Free Press*, about “what the world is saying” regarding Japanese internment in the US, July 27, 1942.

The *Manzanar Free Press* was a newspaper published at Manzanar Relocation Center by internees under the control and supervision of the War Relocation Authority. The newspaper circulated as a community bulletin within the camp to the more than 11,000 people incarcerated there. It included the an occasional column entitled, "What the World is Saying," quoting letters to the editors from national newspapers concerning Japanese American internment.


A War Relocation Authority pamphlet explaining the background and nature of the US program for relocating Japanese Americans, May 1943.

An instruction sheet for internee repatriation to Japan, July 1942.

Internees who applied for repatriation were transferred from their original internment camps to Tule Lake Relocation Camp. In 1943 Tule Lake became a high-security Segregation Center for persons of Japanese ancestry that were believed to have conflicting national loyalties as well as those that applied for repatriation and those who did not want to leave the camp when it transformed from a Relocation Center to a Segregation Center. Many were sent to Tule Lake due to the answers they gave on the “loyalty” questionnaire; this included individuals and whole families.


A photograph of the Hirahara family in their barracks at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, 1942.

A photograph of students in a fourth grade class at Poston Relocation Center in Arizona, 1943.

A photograph of *Nisei* soldiers at Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas, 1943.

During relocation, *Nisei* (American-born Japanese Americans with immigrant parents) were recruited from the camps into all branches of the US Armed Forces. The largest number, including these soldiers, served in the US Army.


A photograph by Dorothea Lange of the camp barracks and surrounding desert at Manzanar Relocation Center in California, July 2, 1942.

A poster advertising a community forum on “concentration camps past and present,” 1974.

The poster features a drawing of the Manzanar cemetery Ireito monument (“Soul Consoling Tower”). The text reads: "'Concentration Camps, U.S.A. A Tribute to the past and present’: A community forum, Date: Saturday, June 1, 1974, Place: S.F. Buddhist Church, Octavia Hiroshi Kashiwagi, Tule Lake internee, writer; Chiz Iyama, Chicago Resettlers; Joyce Nakamura, Co. Against Nihonmachi Eviction; Sponsors: Asian Community TV Services, Bay Area JACL, Co. Against Nihonmachi Eviction, Japanese American Co. on Education, In Struggle, Japanese Comm. Youth Council, J-Town Collective, Kimochi, New Dawn, San Mateo JACL, Taishu." 

Questions

1. Use the [painting by Henry Sugimoto](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1268) and the [poster created by the US War Production Board](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1269) to explain how the attack on Pearl Harbor transformed Japanese Americans from citizens into enemies in the eyes of the US government and the American public.
2. Considering the [column from the *Manzanar Free Press*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1275), explain how the media portrayed and explained Japanese American internment. What impact might these portrayals have had on the Japanese Americans who read them?
3. Closely examine the [photograph of a Japanese-owned store](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1271), the [photograph of a Japanese American woman arriving at Tanforan Racetrack](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1272), and the [letter from Kenji Okuda](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1273). What was the process of relocation like for Japanese Americans? What did they give up? How did non-Japanese Americans, like the teacher who wrote the [letter about “Jimmie”](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1274), respond to their removal?
4. Read the [War Relocation Authority pamphlet](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1276). How did the War Relocation Authority justify the need for Japanese relocation? What biases does this pamphlet reveal? Who was the audience for this pamphlet? What impact might it have had on its audience?
5. How do the [photograph of the Hirahara family](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1278), the [photograph of students](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1279), and [photograph of barracks](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1281) depict daily life in the internment camps? What do they tell us about conditions and resources at the camps?
6. What story do the [resolution passed by the Japanese American Citizens League](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1270), the [instruction sheet for internee repatriation](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1277), and the [photograph of *Nisei* soldiers](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1280) together tell about the issue of loyalty for Japanese Americans during the internment period? How did the questions of loyalty impact different generations of Japanese Americans (*Issei* and *Nisei*) differently? What role did organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League play within the Japanese American community? 
7. How did the experience of the camps irrevocably change the lives of interned Japanese after World War II? Consider the event described in the [poster advertising a community forum](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii/sources/1282). What issues might this community forum have addressed? How does the imagery of the poster support your ideas?

Activity

The geography of Japanese internment had a huge impact on the individual experiences of internees. Look at a [map of the relocation centers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Map_of_World_War_II_Japanese_American_internment_camps.png). Divide students into small groups to do further research about one relocation center: Rohwer, Jerome, Granada, Heart Mountain, Poston, Topaz, Manzanar, Tule Lake, Minidoka, or Gila River. Students should organize a presentation with visuals about the experience of life at their chosen camp by answering the following questions:

* How long was the camp open? What had the site been used for prior to World War II? 
* Where did internees at this camp come from within the exclusion area? 
* What were climate and terrain conditions like at this camp? What challenges did these conditions pose for internees? 
* What did internees do for work? 
* What evidence do we have to support our understanding of life in this camp? 

Use images and documents from DPLA to support the presentation.

Teaching Guide: Exploring Japanese American Internment During World War II

Resources

1. [*Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps*](http://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/japanese-internment) online exhibit, Digital Public Library of America. 
2. [Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives](https://calisphere.org/collections/jarda/), Calisphere. 
3. [*A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution*](http://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/index.html). National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. 
4. Alan Taylor, “[World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans](http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/world-war-ii-internment-of-japanese-americans/100132/).” *The Atlantic*. 


Overview

Compounding a long history of discrimination against Japanese immigrants to the US, Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor cast suspicion on America’s Japanese citizens and residents. By early 1942, fear of Japanese American collusion in Japan’s war effort prompted the US government to suspend the rights of its Japanese American citizens and relocate them to concentration camps. This decision, delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Executive Order 9066, aimed to remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast “exclusion area” where they had access to established channels of communication with Japan.

In all, the US War Relocation Authority evacuated more than 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and transplanted them, first to regional assembly centers, and then to ten relocation centers in remote outposts in the US interior. Of these 110,000, about two-thirds were American-born *Nisei* (second generation) and *Sansei* (third generation) and the rest Japanese-born *Issei*. In the camps, Japanese Americans lived in hastily-constructed barracks in extreme conditions, and struggled to overcome the stresses of internment and dislocation. Despite the suddenness and completeness of their removal from regular life, Japanese Americans resisted isolation by continuing to pursue education, religious worship, and family and community engagement in the camps. The US government subjected internees to loyalty questionnaires and offers to repatriate them to Japan in an effort to identify and contain subversive, disloyal Japanese Americans. Simultaneously, it recruited *Nisei* to enlist in the US Armed Forces.

By the end of 1944, two cases before the US Supreme Court had attempted to challenge the constitutionality of internment. Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of evacuation in wartime, they ruled the incarceration of Japanese Americans unconstitutional. As a result of these decisions and the coming end of World War II, the US government began to release internees and close camps, shuttering nine of ten camps by the end of 1945. Japanese Americans returned to lives that had been taken from them—abandoned businesses, damaged and appropriated property, and stolen assets. This primary source set uses documents and photographs to tell the story of Japanese American internment during World War II.

English

Japanese American Internment During World War II

japanese-american-internment-world-war-ii_15_e424f1685f41ca3ef3a79f6e639ccffd.jpg

Courtesy of University of California Santa Barbara, Special Collections via California Digital Library.

“Concentration camps, U.S.A.; A tribute to the past and present,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/5e69c6ad2587cb34e263cbffada01396.


A poster advertising a community forum on “concentration camps past and present,” 1974.

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Item 15 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Japanese American Internment During World War II