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Web Gleanings: Japanese Internment during World War II

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many people crowd around a bus

Crowd bids bon voyage to Poston residents who left August 24, 1943 for the Rivers Center, on the first lap of the journey to Japan.
Photographer: Pauline Bates Brown

The World Wide Web offers a large number of sites that deal exclusively with the internment of the Japanese during World War II, including several sites that present original documents and photographs of the camps. In recent years, there have been museum exhibits, litigation and the publication of personal memoirs; these, too, appear on the WWW.

TITLE: DECISION TO EVACUATE THE JAPANESE FROM THE PACIFIC COAST
URL: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/conn.html
A narrative of the events and the recommendations that led to the decision to evacuate the Japanese. This chapter, written by Stetson Conn for a book about the U.S. Army in WW II, presents a detailed look at the process and the rationale behind the evacuation decision.

TITLE: INTERNMENT OF SAN FRANCISCO JAPANESE
URL: http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/evactxt.html
Numerous links to articles published in the San Francisco News during 1942. The articles describe the FBI sweeps, the proclamations and orders, the good-byes as people leave for the camps. The language is often racist; it is noted on the page that “words and ideas repugnant and appalling to us today are used, and discussed freely, in the News’ columns.”

TITLE: RELOCATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS
URL: http://www.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/harmony/Docments/wrapam.html
The text of a pamphlet published by the War Relocation Authority, dated May 1943. The pamphlet describes the evacuation program and the relocation camps in addition to some comments on what will be done with the property of the evacuees.

TITLE: JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT ON-LINE EXHIBIT
URL: http://scuish.scu.edu/SCU/Programs/Diversity/exhibit2.html
This exhibit focuses on the internment of those from the Santa Clara Valley. It includes maps of the camps, photographic depictions of life in some of the camps, and other pertinent documents from the time.

TITLE: WAR RELOCATION CAMPS IN ARIZONA
URL: http://www.library.arizona.edu/wracamps/
The two camps in Arizona are described accompanied by photographs. There is also a link to the Executive Order 9066 wherein Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the exclusion of “any and all” people from certain areas at the discretion and determination of the military commanders.

TITLE: JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
URL: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/janm/nrc/internfs.html
URL: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/janm/nrc/internch.html
Two pages which give an overview and the dates and facts about the internment. The first page gives “Incarceration” facts. The second page is a “Chronology of World War II Incarceration.”

RELOCATION CAMPS
DESCRIPTION AND REMINISCENCES

TITLE: LIFE IN THE RELOCATION CAMPS
URL: http://www.kent.wednet.edu/KSD/SJ/Nikkei/RelocationCamps.html
What life in the camps was like.

TITLE: CAMP HARMONY EXHIBIT
URL: http://weber.u.washington.edu/%7Emudrock/ALLEN/Exhibit/index.html
Housing, school, birth, marriage and other aspects of life during the four months at the Puyallup Assembly Center.

TITLE: WRA CAMPS IN ARIZONA
URL: http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/jpamer/exhibit.html
Life in the two internment camps in Arizona.

PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORDS

TITLE: DOROTHEA LANGE
URL: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html

TITLE: HEART MOUNTAIN DIGITAL PRESERVATION PROJECT
http://www.nwc.whecn.edu/Library/HMDP/Collections.htm

TITLE: LIVING. PHOTOS FROM TULE LAKE
URL: http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/photo/9066/living.htm

TITLE: AMERICAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS
URL: http://www.csuohio.edu/art_photos/gallery.html

TITLE: WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY PHOTOGRAPHS
URL: http://www.oac.cdlib.org:28008/dynaweb/ead/calher/jvac

LINKS
SITES WITH LINKS TO DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION ABOUT THE INTERNMENT

TITLE: THE JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT
URL: http://www.oz.net/~cyu/internment/main.html
An extensive list of links.

TITLE: CLPEF NETWORK LINKS
URL: http://www.clpef.net/links.html
This organization focuses on issues related to the wartime internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

TITLE: JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT CAMPS
URL: http://www.umass.edu/history/internment.html
Links from a K-12 Teachers’ Workshop in 1997 at the University of Massachusetts.