Cover Page

Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Essay

Brief History

Gila River

Granada

Heart Mountain

Jerome

Manzanar

Minidoka

Poston

Rohwer

Topaz

Tule Lake

Isolation Centers

Add'l Facilities

Assembly Centers

DoJ and US Army Facilities

Prisons

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord

Chapter 3 (continued)
A Brief History of Japanese American
Relocation During World War II

Setting up the Relocation Centers

To reduce the diversion of soldiers from combat, a civilian organization, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), had been created on March 19, 1942. Once the military made the decision to relocate Japanese Americans en masse from Military Areas No. 1 and 2, this civilian agency was left to figure out how to implement this policy. Milton S. Eisenhower, then an official of the Department of Agriculture, was chosen to head the WRA. Eisenhower initially hoped that many of the evacuees, especially citizens, could be resettled quickly. He expected that evacuees could be either directly released from the assembly centers and sent back to civilian life away from the military areas, or sent to small unguarded subsistence farms.

However, after meeting with the governors and other officials from ten western states on April 7, Eisenhower realized that anti-Japanese racism was not confined to California. No governor wanted any Japanese in their state, and if any came, they wanted them kept under guard. The common feeling was expressed by one of the governors: "If these people are dangerous on the Pacific coast they will be dangerous here!" (Daniels 1993:57). But, their chief concern was that the Japanese would settle in their states and never leave, especially once the war was over. However, at a meeting with local sugar beet growers on the same day, a different view prevailed. Desperate for labor, S.J. Boyer of the Utah Farm Bureau said that farmers "don't love the Japanese, but we intend to work them, if possible" (Daniels 1989:94).

Eisenhower was forced to accept the idea of keeping both the Issei and Nisei in camps for the duration of the war. The idea of incarcerating innocent people bothered him so much, however, that he resigned in June 1942. He recommended his successor, Dillon S. Myer, but advised Myer to take the position only "if you can do the job and sleep at night" (Myer 1971:3).

Continued

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