Japanese internment

The Forgotten History of Japanese Internment in Hawaii

by Olivia Tasevski

Although Hawaii is associated with the United States being victimized by foreign attack, the history of internment of Japanese Americans on the islands should also remind us of the U.S. government's human rights abuses. 

Cash Reparations to Japanese Internees Helped Rebuild Autonomy and Dignity

by Morgan Ome

Many recent proposals for African American reparations prescribe particular uses for compensation, such as securing housing. But the lesson of the $20,000 payments made to Japanese-American internees and their descendants is that restoring dignity and autonomy means letting recipients decide how to spend any payment for themselves. 

Paul Watanabe, Historian and Manzanar Survivor, Makes Sure History Isn't Forgotten

The UMass-Boston professor brings students each spring to the California desert to visit the site where his own family was interned for more than four years. 

The US Government Hired Dorothea Lange to Document the Japanese Internment, then Censored Her Photos

The War Relocation Authority hired Lange and Ansel Adams, hoping to polish the public image of internment. Lange's photos, which revealed the harsh conditions of camps and the human tragedy of removal from homes and neighborhoods, were shelved. 

Pushed to Soften Discussion of Racism, Author Pulls out of Scholastic Deal

Maggie Tokuda-Hall wrote the story of her grandparents meeting in a WWII-era internment camp, but it wasn't a commercial success. When Scholastic offered to license the work for classrooms, they asked for the unacceptable: downplaying the severity of anti-Japanese racism. 

Creating the First Complete List of Names of Interned Japanese Americans

Duncan Ryuken Williams of the University of Southern California led a research team for three years assembling a documentary record that could restore the individuality of 125,000 victims of internment. 

Can We Condemn One Empire Without Affirming Another?

by Moon-Ho Jung

The experience of left-wing Japanese Americans, who rejected Japanese imperialism while being oppressed by American nationalism, shows that war forces an artificial binary of national allegiance. 

Recent Violence Shows the Need to Teach More Asian American History

by Alan J. Singer

The targeting of Asian Americans for violence and harassment shows the need to teach more of the history of Asian ethnic groups and acknowlege legacies of exclusion and discrimination. 

Shirley Ann Higuchi: Sen. Lee is Obstructing Establishment of National Historic Site for former Internment Center

The Utah Senator is blocking unanimous consent rules for a bill that would establish a historic site commemorating the internment of 8,000 Japanese Americans at Camp Amache in Colorado. 

Japanese American Soldiers in World War II Fought the Axis Abroad and Racial Prejudice at Home

by Susan H. Kamei

The USPS has just released a stamp commemorating the service of the Japanese-American 100th/442nd combat unit in Europe during World War II. It's equally important to remember the way that veterans of that unit fought remaining racial prejudice after the war. 

Japanese Internment, Football, and a Legendary Team

Dave Zirin's Edge of Sports podcast hosts Bradford Pearson, the author of "The Eagles of Heart Mountain," the story of a group of interned Japanese American teens whose football team dominated the state of Wyoming. 

Forgotten Camps, Living History: Japanese Internment in the South

by Jason Christian

Camp Livingston, deep in the Louisiana pines, used to be the site of a World War II Japanese internment camp. Drawing from the memories of internees, the research of two Louisiana State University librarians and other historians, and the activism of survivors and their descendants, this story uncovers a buried piece of American history.

National Park Service Awards More than $3.1 Million in Grants to Preserve and Interpret World War II Japanese American Confinement Sites

The 22 projects funded will help tell the stories of the more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the nation of Japan in 1941.

Bellevue College President, Vice President Out after Mural on Japanese American Incarceration was Altered

The deletion was condemned by the Seattle chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, which called the act “tantamount to agreement with the hate speech of decades past.”

California Plans to Apologize to Japanese-Americans Over Internment

Nearly 80 years after Japanese-Americans were forced into internment camps, the State Assembly plans to formally apologize for its role in the detention.

Why Tom Ikeda, a historian of Japanese Internment, is Protesting Trump Over Immigrant Detention

When Tom Ikeda, a Seattle historian, learned that 1,400 migrant children will be detained this summer at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, the symbolism hit home.

How the Debate Over the Use of the Term ‘Concentration Camp’ was Amicably Resolved in 1998

by Ralph Seliger

How the Japanese-American organizers of a museum exhibit at Ellis Island entitled “America’s Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese American Experience” came to an amicable agreement with the  American Jewish Committee (AJC).

What a Japanese-American soldier’s thirty-year secret can teach us about race, war, and loyalty

by Sandra Vea

 Interpreters with the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during WW2 were credited for shortening the war in the South Pacific by two years. Yet, they had to keep their service secret for 30 years. 

Supreme Court’s Travel-Ban Includes Surprise Ruling: Japanese Internment Was Wrong

The decision explicitly renounced the Korematsu decision.

The 75th Anniversary of FDR’s Order to Intern Japanese-Americans Is Frighteningly Timely

by Joanne Bernardi

More than ever, we need to think beyond borders and identities, to reframe the issues at hand in terms of what it means to be human.