TIMELINE of Asian American History between 1940 and 1949

In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast.

A Nation Turns on Its Japanese Residents
The nation's Japanese population, sensing that it might be targeted in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, quickly went about demonstrating its loyalty to the United States. Japanese residents bought war bonds, gave blood, and even ran newspaper ads denouncing Japan. The day after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese American Citizens League sent a telegram to President Roosevelt, part of which read: "In this solemn hour we pledge our fullest cooperation to you, Mr. President, and to our country. There cannot be any
question. . . . We in our hearts know we are Americans, loyal to America."


	Flag at Manzanar

The FBI quickly began rounding up any and all "suspicious" Japanese for internment. None was ever charged with any crime. Almost all were simply Japanese community leaders, Buddhist or Shinto priests, newspaper editors, language or Judo instructors, or labor organizers. The Japanese community leadership was liquidated in one quick operation.

Men were taken away without notice. Most families knew nothing about why their men had suddenly disappeared, to where they were taken, or when they would be released. Some arrestees were soon let free, but most were secretly shipped to internment camps around the country. Some families learned what had happened to their men only several years later. The action also included the freezing of bank accounts, seizure of contraband, drastic limitation on travel, curfew and other severely restrictive measures. But this FBI operation merely set the stage for the mass evacuation to come.

In January 1942, War Department classifies Japanese American men of draft age 4-C "enemy aliens." Status not changed until June 16, 1946.

In February 1942, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, requested authorization from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast area. On 19 February, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War or any military commander to establish "military areas" and to exclude from them "any or all persons. A month later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority, which eventually operated the internment camps. Roosevelt named Milton Eisenhower, brother of the future president, to head the WRA.

"Kenji" (Fort Minor) - Internment Camp Video

February 21, 1942 - Los Angeles Way Station for WWII Japanese Internees

: On that night, the FBI surrounded the Torrance home of Nikuma Tanouye (Note: One of his sons, Ted Tanouye, joined the Army and won the Medal of Honor. He was killed in action.). Documents at the National Archives in Laguna Niguel tell the story of Nikuma Tanouye and nearly 2,700 other Japanese citizens and a smaller number of Germans, Italians and others who passed through Tuna Canyon Detention Station. Federal archivist Gwen Granados said the first 35 Japanese nationals arrested (for immigration violations who were mostly fishermen who worked on Terminal Island) here after Pearl Harbor were sent to Griffith Park, where there was a makeshift jail with tight security. They were transferred to Tuna Canyon, which opened Dec. 15, 1941; it had fences topped by barbed wire, sentry boxes at each corner and floodlights.

The Tuna Canyon facility was a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp built in 1933 on 54 acres near Glendale. It could hold 300 detainees. Authorities maintained a low profile there, as at the Griffith Park site. Detainees were subject to Justice Department hearings and trials for such offenses as curfew violations and failure to register as an enemy alien. Their detention ranged from a few days to a few months and they were were prohibited to go within 10 feet of the fence.
American law officers also went to Latin America in 1942, where they rounded up more than 2,000 Japanese nationals and brought them back to centers such as Tuna Canyon. Those detainees were held to exchange for American civilians trapped in Japan. As many as 500 Japanese Peruvians were traded.
Officials were supposed to detain people at Tuna Canyon temporarily, until they had received a hearing. But "temporarily" fluctuated: Usually they were held until there were enough inmates to fill a train, then were moved to inland internment camps. U.S. Border Patrol Officer Merrill Scott supervised Tuna Canyon. In a May 25, 1942, report to the State Department, he listed 76 Japanese, 10 German and 16 Italian male inmates.

Without a murmur of dissent, the Congress quickly affirmed Executive Order 9066 with the passage of Public Law 77-503.
(The order did not specify Japanese Americans, but they were the only group to be imprisoned as a result of it. Eventually 120,000 Japanese, aliens and citizens, were incarcerated.)

The terms used to describe what happened to over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II vary considerably amongst scholars, government officials, and even Japanese Americans themselves: relocation, evacuation, incarceration, internment, concentration camp.
No one agrees about what is most accurate or fair.

Japanese stated "I Am An American"

The language used to describe the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II is often controversial. Some Americans feel that “concentration camps” is the most appropriate term for the places in which Japanese Americans were confined. Other Americans associate the term only with the Holocaust. Although many Americans are more comfortable with milder terms such as relocation or interment camps, these terms are historically and legally inaccurate.

Officially, the camps were named “relocation centers.” Many now acknowledge that “relocation center” and “evacuation” are euphemisms, used purposefully by the government to downplay the significance of their actions. Perhaps the most blatant example is the United States government’s use of the term “non-alien” to refer to American citizens of Japanese ancestry as a way of shrouding the violation of constitutional rights. As historian Roger Daniels has suggested, euphemisms are part of injustice.

This is a portion of Lt. Gen. J.L. DeWitt's letter of transmittal to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, June 5, 1943, of his Final Report; Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942
Intelligence services records reflected the existence of hundreds of Japanese organizations in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona which, prior to December 7, 1941, were actively engaged in advancing Japanese war aims.

These records also disclosed that thousands of American-born Japanese had gone to Japan to receive their education and indoctrination there and had become rabidly pro-Japanese and then had returned to the United States. Emperor-worshipping ceremonies were commonly held and millions of dollars had flowed into the Japanese imperial war chest from the contributions freely made by Japanese here.

The continued presence of a large, unassimilated, tightly knit and racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion along a frontier vulnerable to attack constituted a menace which had to be dealt with. Their loyalties were unknown and time was of the essence.

The evident aspirations of the enemy emboldened by his recent successes made it worse than folly to have left any stone unturned in the building up of our defenses. It is better to have had this protection and not to have needed it than to have needed it an not to have had it – as we have learned to our sorrow.
For more info, click HERE

The government, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, used the phrase “concentration camps” in speeches and written documents during World War II to refer to the places where Japanese Americans were confined. It is important to note that a concentration camp is defined broadly as a place where people are imprisoned not because they are guilty of any crimes, but simply because of who they are. Many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history, with the term “concentration camp” first used at the turn of the twentieth century in the Boer War. Joseph E. Perisco (who wrote the book Roosevelt's Secret War) writes that President Roosevelt had convincing information from several intelligence sources that Japanese Americans and Japanese aliens posed no threat to American security in the event of a war with Japan and yet disregarded the intelligence reports out of political expedience. Earl Warren who later became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and who will be remembered as a champion of civil rights: "So far as this great state of ours is concerned, we have had no fifth-column activities and no sabotage reported.

Despite their differences, all concentration camps have one thing in common: people in power remove a minority group from the general population and the rest of society allows it to happen.

On February 27, 1942 - Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee in Seattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they were in "concentration camps under military guard." Some credit Clark with the conception of what was to become a true scenario.
Beginning in March, the Army organized the evacuation of some 77 000 U.S. citizens of Japanese origin ("Nisei") and 43 000 mostly older Japanese citizens ("Issei") from California and parts of Washington, Oregon and Arizona.
On March 2, 1942 - Public Proclamation #1 issued by Lt. General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, specifies military zones 1 and 2. Zone 1 includes western halves of California, Washington and Oregon and southern third of Arizona. A curfew goes into effect in these areas; all those of Japanese ancestry must remain at home from 8 pm to 6 am.
On March 18, 1942 - The President signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority with Milton Eisenhower as director.
In March 1942 - The Wartime Civil Control Administration opens 16 "Assembly Centers," 13 of them in California, to detain approximately 92,000 men, women, and children until the permanent incarceration camps are completed. Many of the California residents who eventually end up in Arkansas are assigned to the Stockton, CA, center which operated from May 10 through October 17.
Posters appeared the length of the West Coast ordering the Japanese to evacuation points. "Instructions to all persons of JAPANESE ancestry," read the bold headline on a typical poster. The text read: "All Japanese persons, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above designated areas by 12:00 o'clock noon Tuesday, April 7, 1942." The evacuees were told to report for internment with bedrolls and only as much baggage as could be carried by hand. (A postwar survey showed that 80 percent of the privately stored goods belonging to the interned Japanese were "rifled, stolen or sold during absence.")

War Relocation Authority / Washington, D.C. / May 1943

The relocation centers, however, are NOT and ever were intended to be internment camps or places of confinement. They were established for two primary purposes:

(1) To provide communities where evacuees might live and contribute, through their work, to their own support pending their gradual reabsorption into private employment and normal American life; and

(2) to serve as wartime homes for those evacuees who might be unable or unfit to relocate in ordinary American communities. Under regulations adopted in September of 1942, the War Relocation Authority is now working toward a steady depopulation of the enters by urging all able-bodied residents with good records of behavior to eenter private employment in agriculture or industry.
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In May 1942 - The evacuees begin transfer to permanent WRA incarceration facilities or "camps." They total ten: Manzanar, Poston, Gila River, Topaz, Granada, Heart Mountain, Minidoka, Tule Lake, Jerome, and Rohwer.
On June 3, 1942, the last of 3,677 Japanese-Americans were evacuated from Oregon, having been registered as potential threats to national security at the municipal building at 34 W. Sixth Ave. They were loaded onto the 87th Civilian Exclusion Order train at Eugene's railroad station and, after a stop in Medford, went on to Tule Lake detention camp in Northern California. It would not be until 1946 that anyone of Japanese ancestry could legally set foot in Western Oregon again.
On June 17, 1942 - Milton Eisenhower resigns as WRA director. Dillon Myer is appointed to replace him.
On July 1, 1942 - Construction begins on Rohwer Relocation Center by the Linebarger- Senne Construction Company of Little Rock, Arkansas.
On July 15, 1942 - Construction begins on Jerome Relocation Center by A.J. Rife Construction Company of Dallas, Texas.
On August 4, 1942 - A routine search for contraband at the Santa Anita "Assembly Center" turns into a "riot." Eager military personnel had become overzealous and abusive which, along with the failure of several attempts to reach the camp's internal security chief, triggers mass unrest, crowd formation, and the harassing of the searchers. Military police with tanks and machine guns quickly end the incident. The "overzealous" military personnel are later replaced.

In September, 1942 - The last of the 16 Assembly Centers close when the inmates are transferred to concentration camps. The first inmates arrive at Rohwer, Arkansas. Evacuees came from California and had to endure a three-day train ride from the assembly centers to reach Arkansas.

FDR QUOTE:

The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to having thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese come over here and intermarry with the American population.
For more info, click HERE

These deplorable actions actually happened in the United States! Discover the specific details:

According to the census of 1940, 127,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lived in the United States, the majority on the West Coast. One-third had been born in Japan, and in some states could not own land, be naturalized as citizens, or vote.
The Census Bureau was deeply involved in the roundup and internment of Japanese-Americans at the onset of U.S. entry into World War II. On Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Census Bureau produced a report titled ``Japanese Population of the United States, Its Territories and Possessions.'' The next day the bureau issued a report on the Japanese population by citizenship and place of birth in selected cities. The next day it published another report, this one on the Japanese population by counties in states on the West Coast. All reports were based on data from the 1940 census. The Census Bureau stated "We didn't want to wait for the declaration of war. On Monday morning (January 1942) we put our people to work on the Japanese thing." ** The United States declared war on Japan that Monday afternoon! (see below) (Steven A. Lolmes/New York Times/San Jose Mercury News/March 17, 2000) The Census Bureau attempts to deny they released information confidential information such as the names and addresses of Japanese American citizens! The Census law ensures that your information is only used for statistical purposes and that no unauthorized person can see your form or find out what you tell us - no other government agency, no court of law, NO ONE.
The Census Bureau expresses regrets over this situation(!?!?!) in the year 2000!
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 authorizing the secretary of war to delegate a military commander to designate military areas in the US "from which any and all persons may be excluded" - primarily enforced against Japanese.
Congress passes Public Law 503 to impose penal sanctions on anyone disobeying orders to carry out Executive Order 9066. Japanese Americans at Poston War Relocation Camp, where 9000 West Coast persons of Japanese ancestry were held at various locations, begin a general strike.

This story about Masumi Hayashi first aired March 25, 2004, on "Outlook." It was rebroadcast Dec. 21, 2006, shortly after Congress approved $38 million to presevere WW II internment camps. Our crew enjoyed meeting her, and learning about the history of the camps. So it was with sadness when we recently learned she was the victim of a senseless crime. In August, Hayashi was shot to death in her Cleveland apartment. As a tribute, we (WV Broadcasting Company) thought it would be worthwhile to take a second look at the work of Masumi Hayashi

Eight camps were in the West; the southeast Arkansas sites at Rohwer and Jerome were the only ones in the South. The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation gave $4 million in grants to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Los Angeles-based Japanese American National Museum to preserve the information of the Arkansas internment camp.
At Idaho Hunt's Minidoka Relocation Center, 13,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up from their homes in Idaho, Oregon and Washington and sent here in World War II. Unforgettable winter cold, the summer heat or the dust storms that the wooden barracks covered with tar paper did not keep out made life even more intolerable.
US Military Police fire on 1000 Japanese American protesters at the Manzanar Relocation Center; 2 die, 8 are wounded.
Civilian Exclusion Order #79 was the official word to the masses.
The history of the Internment Camps was a sad time in United States history. The final results of War Relocation Authority notes that 120,313 Japanese and Japanese Americans lived in the internment camps from 1942-1945 who had to survive the insanity through various ways possible.
It developed, ironically, the offical start of Asian American Jazz!
An interesting side note is that the California State Personnel Board voted to bar all "descendants of natives with whom the United States [is] at war" from all civil service positions." This was only enforced against Japanese Americans.
Witness the pictures of the Internment Discover specific details of what occured! Camps that truely can tell the true stories of the horrors!?!?!
All non-citizens were given the loyalty questionaire for female citizens, except that it was titled "Application for Leave Clearance." -- thereby asking them to swear sole allegiance to the government that excluded them from citizenship.
When the U.S. government also ordered the detainment of scores of talented Japanese American baseball players such as Henry Honda (Cleveland Indians), Herb "Moon" Kurima (Semi-pro league and pitched a no-hitter/21-strikeout game), Kenichi Zenimura ("Dean of the Diamond" organized Japanese-American), etc. Baseball leagues were formed in the camps with people such as Pat Morita playing on the teams. They paved the way for Ryan Kurosaki to became the first third-generation Japanese-American to play in the majors (1975).
These deplorable actions occurred, despite comments such as (On December 15, 1941) After a brief visit to Hawaii, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox tells the press, "I think the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the possible exception of Norway."

For people interested in further information, please feel free to visit the following websites:

Citizens Being Process in Santa Anita

Smithsonian Museum Tribute to Japanese Americans
Various personal perspectives and other informative links will be discovered HERE.
Japanese American Internment Memorial.
National Japanese American Historical Society.
Life Interrupted.
Frank Abe's film about draft resistors.
Specific and detailed information on the actual internment camps are listed HERE.
For a more specific timeline related directly to the camps can be found HERE.
Read how the US Government justified the internment (with similar actions used during the Wen Ho Lee situation), the evacuation and timeline by visiting HERE.
Tule and Topaz Internment camp information are located HERE.
Letters from a Japanese Americn Internment Camp
Real Audio of NPR segment on the Letters written
Interview with Elizabeth Yamada
Stories of the Internment Camp's children
View the documentary, Rabbit in the Moon about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

RACISM DURING WWII
Racism was rampant following the Japanese attack on that infamous Sunday morning. Wartime hysteria led to the imprisonment of about 120,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps that peppered the western part of the nation. Ted Ohira�s (recipient of three Bronze Stars) memory of that white face, that voice so saturated with hate that stated "Hey you dirty Jap." After all that combat. I went through five major battles in Europe, and I received lots of awards and medals. � And then one day, in downtown Los Angeles, I hear this: `Hey you dirty Jap.' "I don't cry. I didn't then. I got mad and I wanted to beat that guy up, but I said `this guy is ignorant.' I had enough of fighting and I just walked away."
INTERNMENT'S "EVACUATED PEOPLE"
In the interest of both accuracy and fairness, it is important to distinguish sharply between the residents of relocation centers and the militarists of Imperial Japan. Two-thirds of the people in the centers are American citizens, born in this country and educated, for the most part, in American public schools. At all centers, the residents have bought thousands of dollars worth of war bonds and have made significant contributions to the American Red Cross. Many of them have sons, husbands, and brothers in the United States Army. Even the aliens among them have nearly all lived in the United States for two decades or longer. And it is important to remember that these particular aliens have been denied the privilege of gaining American citizenship under our laws.

Americans like to think that victory in 1945 also solved the problem posed by Japan. Did it? Even today, as the controversial Yasukuni Shrine reminds us, many Japanese cling to a different understanding of the Pacific war's origins and justification. As far as China and South Korea are concerned, victory in 1945 did not solve their Japan problem; that problem persists and is growing. If East Asia becomes the locus of renewed great power competition between China and Japan, V-J Day will no longer look quite so decisive
For more info, click HERE.

It is also important to distinguish between residents of relocation centers and civilian internees. Under our laws, aliens of enemy nationality who are found guilty of acts or intentions against the security of the Nation are being confined in internment camps which are administered not by the War Relocation Authority but the Department of Justice. American citizens suspected of subversive activities are being handled through the ordinary courts. The residents of the relocation centers, however, have never been found guilty�either individually or collectively�of any such acts or intentions. They are merely a group of American residents who happen to have Japanese ancestors and who happened to be living in a potential combat zone shortly after the outbreak of war. All evidences available to the War Relocation Authority indicates that the great majority of them are completely loyal to the United States.

STUDENT RELOCATIONS
The physical standards of life in the relocation centers have never been much above the bare subsistence level. For some few of the evacuees, these standards perhaps represent a slight improvement over those enjoyed before evacuation. But for the great majority of the evacuated people, the environment of the centers�despite all efforts to make them livable�remains subnormal and probably always will be. In spite of the leave privileges, the movement of evacuees while they reside at the centers is necessarily somewhat restricted and a certain feeling of isolation and confinement is almost inevitable.

Life @ Internment Camp

RELOCATION CENTERS
The physical standards of life in the relocation centers have never been much above the bare subsistence level. For some few of the evacuees, these standards perhaps represent a slight improvement over those enjoyed before evacuation. But for the great majority of the evacuated people, the environment of the centers�despite all efforts to make them livable�remains subnormal and probably always will be. In spite of the leave privileges, the movement of evacuees while they reside at the centers is necessarily somewhat restricted and a certain feeling of isolation and confinement is almost inevitable.

Housing is provided for the evacuee residents of the centers in tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind. Most of these barracks are partitioned off so that a family of five or six, for example, will normally occupy a single room 25 by 20 feet. Bachelors and other unattached evacuees live mainly in unpartitioned barracks which have been established as dormitories. The only furnishings provided by the Government in the residence barracks are standard Army cots and blankets and small heating stoves. One bath, laundry, and toilet building is available for each block of barracks and is shared by upwards of 250 people.

Food is furnished by the Government for all evacuee residents. The meals are planned at an average cost of not more than 45 cents per person per day (the actual cost, as this is written, has averaged almost 48 cents), are prepared by evacuee cooks, and are served generally cafeteria style in mess halls that accommodate between 250 and 300 persons. At all centers, Government-owned or Government- leased farmlands are being operated by evacuee agricultural crews to produce a considerable share of the vegetables needed in the mess halls. At nearly all centers, the farm program also includes the production of poultry, eggs, and pork; and at a few the evacuees are raising beef and dairy products. Every evacuee is subject to the same food rationing restrictions as all other residents of the United States.

Medical care is available to all evacuee residents of relocation centers without charge. Hospitals have been built at all the centers and are manned in large part by doctors, nurses, nurses' aides, and technicians from the evacuee population. Simple dental and optical services are also provided and special care is given to infants and nursing mothers. Evacuees requesting special medical services not available at the centers are required to pay for the cost of such services. As all centers, in view of the crowded and abnormal living conditions, special sanitary precautions are necessary to safeguard the community health and prevent the outbreak of epidemics.

Work opportunities of many kinds are made available to able-bodied evacuee residents at relocation centers. The policy of WRA is to make the fullest-possible use of evacuee skills and manpower in all jobs that are essential to community operations. Evacuees are employed in the mess halls, on the farms, in the hospitals, on the internal police force, in construction and road maintenance works, in clerical and stenographic jobs, and in may other lines of activity. Most of those who work are paid at the rate of $16 a month for a 44-hour week. Apprentices and others requiring close supervision receive $12 while those with professional skills, supervisory responsibilities, or unusually difficult duties are paid $19. In addition, each evacuee working at a relocation center receives a small monthly allowance for the purchase of work clothing for himself and personal clothing for his dependents. Opportunities for economic gain in the ordinary sense are almost completely lacking to the residents of the centers.

Internment Camp Kid

INTERNMENT CAMP TEACHERS
During their time in the Internment Camps, a group of volunteer teachers (mostly White) gave Japanese American students hope. In classrooms that initially lacked desks, textbooks and school supplies, the teachers somehow ignited the young minds and inspired students to pursue careers in science, medicine, education. Teachers such as Margaret Harvey, Katherine Stegner Odum, Joseph Goodman, Margaret Crosby Gunderson, Lois/Frank Ferguson (who wrote his 1942 thesis at UCLA boldly criticized prevailing public attitudes that Japanese Americans were disloyal and unassimilable, and urged understanding of them), Alberta Kassing, Thomas Temple and Ralph/Mary Smeltzer told students at the Tule Lake camp not to give up on the Constitution; that the nation's flawed political leadership was to blame for their unjust internment.

"They gave to us the link to the America we knew: the sense that not all Americans were racist, not all of them saw us as a threat but saw the potential we had as individuals," said Glenn Kumekawa, a retired Rhode Island professor who was sent to Topaz camp in Utah at age 14 after winning his San Francisco grammar school's American Citizenship Award.
From 1942 to 1945, an estimated 30,000 children attended the K-12 schools, which were operated by the federal War Relocation Authority. Teachers were recruited and hired by U.S. civil service representatives; some signed up for altruistic reasons, while others just needed a job. The schools were plagued by inadequate facilities, supply shortages and, in some cases, frequent staff turnover, according to reports, and most were closed in late 1945 along with the camps.

Street @ Manzanar

INTERNMENT CAMPS
Manzanar was one of 10 internment camps to which the U.S. government sent citizens of Japanese ancestry following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. It is in the high desert at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, northeast of Los Angeles, not far from the community of Lone Pine. Manzanar, officially called the Manzanar War Relocation Center began as an "assembly center" under U.S. army control. In the 1940s, it housed 10,000 internees. The interred were not suspects in any crimes, not guilty of any wrongdoing.

The camp, which consisted of 36 blocks of barracks within a confined area of one-square mile, was the scene of many hardships as men, women, and children sought to establish some semblance of normal life while attempting to overcome the trauma of forced evacuation and facing an uncertain future.

Manzanar officially closed Nov. 21, 1945. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1972 after a vigorous, yearlong campaign by Japanese Americans. The National Park Service maintains the site, which is open to visitors year-round.

Joyce Yuki Nakamura (1943)

TULE LAKE: Surrounded by a 10-foot-high barbed wire "man-proof" fence and 28 watchtowers, and guarded by a battalion of soldiers and eight armored tanks, the Tule Lake Segregation Center - 20,000 people, it had more than 1,600 buildings spread across 7,400 acres - near the Oregon border was the nation's largest Japanese American internment camp and in time became the only one of the 10 in the country that was designated for internees considered security risks. Most of those internees were known as the "No-No boys," because they had answered "no" to — or refused to answer — a two-part loyalty question that asked internees to renounce the Japanese emperor and agree to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Within a few years of the camp's closing in the summer of 1946, the once-sprawling settlement was dismantled. Some buildings fell victim to weather and time. Much of what remained was scavenged: The jail's metal bars were salvaged for scrap; the internee barracks were cut in half and given to homesteading veterans; and an officers club was converted into a grocery store. Even the headstones from the camp's cemetery were taken as souvenirs and the cemetery was converted into a landfill.

POSTON: Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation for a specific reason: Japanese detainees were brought to the desolate location to provide free, forced labor for the American government. U.S. government sent nearly 20,000 of them to three camps on a Colorado River Indian Tribe reservation at Poston with an explicit plan to use Japanese Americans -- most of them Californians skilled in farming -- to help develop tribal lands for later Indian use. Under the plan, the Japanese Americans helped clear lands and build irrigation systems, started farms and built schools from handmade adobe bricks. Their work in developing a reservation that previously had no electricity, running water or modern homes -- many families lived in mud huts -- laid the foundation for the tribe to jump-start its standard of living and thrive financially. The Japanese were ordered to build the infrastructure — schools, dams, canals and farms — so the U.S. government could consolidate scattered American Indian tribes from smaller reservations in one place after the war.

In this time of racial discrimination and hatred for the Japanese, the plan was a way to displace one group of unwelcome people and use their hard work to build the infrastructure so another displaced group of people — American Indians — could be isolate