Japanese Relocation and Internment

NARA Resources

Documents and Photographs Related to Japanese Relocation during World War II
A collection of NARA documents and photographs relating to the internment of Japanese in the United States. A lesson plan for educators that provides a correlation between the Great Depression and American attitudes toward the Japanese.

"How an eagle feels when his wings are clipped and caged:" Relocation Center Newspapers Describe Japanese American Internment in World War II"
Rebecca K. Sharp's Prologue article describes newspapers published by Japanese Americans interned in relocation camps during World War II.

President Gerald R. Ford's Proclamation 4417, Confirming the Termination of the Executive Order Authorizing Japanese-American Internment during World War II
This proclamation by Gerald Ford removed the possibility of a reinstitution of Executive Order 9066. From the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.

Researching Japanese War Crimes Records: Introductory Essays
Online version of the book by Edward Drea, Greg Bradsher, Robert Hanyok, James Lide, Michael Petersen, and Daqing Yang of the Interagency Working Group

Return to Sender: U.S. Censorship of Enemy Alien Mail in World War II
A two-part Prologue article that reviews the establishment of an internal U.S. censor for mail of "enemy aliens". This article provides insight into the recruitment of censors, their duties, and the strange bureaucracy of the censor's job. Includes information on the particular challenges of censoring Japanese-American citizens who wrote in Japanese.

The War Relocation Authority and The Incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II
The Truman Presidential Library's collection of photographs, oral histories, chronologies, documents, and lesson plans regarding the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Other Resources

"Abundant dreams diverted"
Seattle Times article recapping the history of Japanese in Washington State in the early 1900s and their subsequent evacuation to relocation camps in the 1940s.

Beyond Barbed Wire: Japanese Internment through Salem Eyes
Multimedia exhibit presenting the experience of being interned in a Japanese relocation camp.

Children of the Camps: Internment History
From the PBS web site, "Children of the Camps is a one-hour documentary that portrays the poignant stories of six Japanese Americans who were interned as children in U.S. concentration camps during World War II."

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites
Information from the National Park Service about the internment camps.

The Decision to Evacuate the Japanese from the Pacific Coast
An extensive and detailed army analysis by Stetson Conn of the circumstances surrounding the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
"Densho's mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished."

Internment of San Francisco Japanese
Primary and secondary documents from San Francisco reflecting common public sentiments regarding the evacuation of Japanese. Includes the Museum of the City of San Francisco's 1942 San Francisco War Events timeline, the War Relocation Authority's 1943 publication "Relocation of Japanese Americans," and excerpts from General DeWitt's "Final Report on the Evacuation of the Japanese."

Japanese American Archival Collection ImageBase
From the Sacramento State University Library, "The Japanese American Archival Collection (JAAC) ImageBase presents about 1400 images in a searchable database of selected photographs and images of artifacts related to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II."

Japanese American Internment
This lesson plan from the Library of Congress includes primary sources.

Japanese-American Relocation Digital Archives
The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (JARDA) provides access to the archival and manuscript holdings of numerous California archives and museums. JARDA contains personal diaries, letters, photographs and drawings, camp newsletters, reports, photographs, and WRA administrative documents.

Letters from the Japanese American Internment
Lesson plan from the Smithsonian Institution based on letters between Clara Estelle Breed, a childrenÂ’s librarian at the San Diego Public Library, and internees evacuated from San Diego.

Masumi Hayashi Photography
This site focuses on Professor Masumi Hayashi's body of work that deals with the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Hayashi's panoramic photo collages show the remnants of sites of Japanese American internment camps during World War II, an archeological memory. Also included are portrait collages of internees.

A More Perfect Union
This moving Smithsonian website provides personal narrative, music, timelines, and photographs of the Japanese relocation during World War II.

Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
The Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress presents side-by-side digital scans of both Adams's 242 original negatives and his 209 photographic prints.

War Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946
This University of Arizona photo documentary is also accompanied by brief explanations of the rationale behind the relocation effort, as well as reproductions of governmental decrees that set the effort to relocate in motion. The site also links to numerous points of interest and offers suggestions for further study.

War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, 1942-1945
A finding aid for photographs of Japanese-American relocation compiled by The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Many of the images are available on the site.

The War Relocation Centers of World War II: When Fear Was Stronger than Justice
The National Park Service created this lesson plan which includes photographs, documents, and maps.

World War II Internment Camps
From the Handbook of Texas, information about internment camps located in Texas that housed Japanese Americans arrested by the FBI, members of Axis nationalities residing in Latin-American countries, and Axis sailors arrested in American ports after the attack on Pearl Harbor.