Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites

Description

Confinement and Ethnicity documents in unprecedented detail the various facilities in which persons of Japanese descent living in the western United States were confined during World War II: the fifteen “assembly centers” run by the U.S. Army’s Wartime Civil Control Administration, the ten “relocation centers” created by the War Relocation Authority, and the internment camps, penitentiaries, and other sites under the jurisdiction of the Justice and War Departments. Originally published as a report of the Western Archeological and Conservation Center of the National Park Service, it is now reissued in a corrected edition, with a new Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima, associate professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington. Based on archival research, field visits, and interviews with former residents, Confinement and Ethnicity provides an overview of the architectural remnants, archeological features, and artifacts remaining at the various sites. Included are numerous maps, diagrams, charts, and photographs. Historic images of the sites and their inhabitants -- including several by Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams -- are combined with photographs of present-day settings, showing concrete foundations, fence posts, inmate-constructed drainage ditches, and foundations and parts of buildings, as well as inscriptions in Japanese and English written or scratched on walls and rocks. The result is a unique and poignant treasure house of information for former residents and their descendants, for Asian American and World War II historians, and for anyone interested in the facts about what the authors call these “sites of shame.” Contents Abstract Acknowledgments Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima Chapter 1: Sites of Shame: An Introduction Chapter 2: To Undo a Mistake is Always Harder Than Not to Create One Originally by Eleanor Roosevelt Chapter 3: A Brief History of Japanese American Relocation During World War II Chapter 4: Gila River Relocation Center, Arizona Chapter 5: Granada Relocation Center, Colorado Chapter 6: Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming Chapter 7: Jerome Relocation Center, Arkansas Chapter 8: Manzanar Relocation Center, California Chapter 9: Minidoka Relocation Center, Idaho Chapter 10: Poston Relocation Center, Arizona Chapter 11: Rohwer Relocation Center, Arkansas Chapter 12: Topaz Relocation Center, Utah Chapter 13: Tule Lake Relocation Center, California Chapter 14: Citizen Isolation Centers Chapter 15: Additional War Relocation Authority Facilities Chapter 16: Assembly Centers Chapter 17: Department of Justice and U.S. Army Facilities Chapter 18: Federak Bureau of Prisons References Cited Appendix A: Relocation Center Drawings in Records Group 210, National Archives, Cartographic Division / Compiled by Irene J. Cohen Appendix B: Tule Lake Relocation Center Drawings at the Bureau of Reclamation, Klamath Falls Office Appendix C: Selected Relocation Center Blueprints