Japanese-American Internment Camps in Idaho and the West, 1942-1945
Issued Feb. 19, 1942, two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Presidential Executive Order 9066 made possible the removal of American citizens of Japanese descent from the West Coast. The three westernmost states were designated as a defense area from which any or all persons could be excluded at the discretion of the military commander. In March 1942 President Roosevelt established the War Relocation Board, and the complete evacuation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast was ordered as a security measure. Ten concentration camps were established that would eventually hold more than 110,000 people. Camp Minidoka was located near Hunt, Idaho, 20 miles northeast of Twin Falls. In August 1942 the government began transporting Japanese-Americans to the camp via train. Most Minidoka residents came from Seattle and Portland and were given notice only one week before being forced to move. Ten thousand people (making Minidoka Idaho’s eighth largest city) were interned in tar-paper barracks that had no insulation, running water, or interior walls, and that were heated by coal-burning stoves. Barbed wire, guard towers, armed guards, and watch dogs secured the 950 acre site. Despite forced internment, many Japanese-Americans served bravely in the U.S. army. An all Japanese-American military unit — the 442nd Regimental Combat Team — fought in the Italian campaigns, and became the most decorated unit in the war, winning 18,000 medals. Minidoka had the highest enlistment — and casualty — rates of any US internment camp: over 1,000 camp residents served overseas. Seattle recently renamed its US Federal Courthouse building after William Kenzo Nakamura, a Minidoka resident who joined the 442nd and was killed by a German sniper in Italy on July 4, 1944. The last family left Camp Minidoka in October 1945. In 1979 Minidoka was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1990 the US Government began making $20,000 payments to camp survivors. A memorial to the camp internees was dedicated in Washington DC in November 2000, and in January 2001 President Clinton named Minidoka a National Monument. (Call numbers are for copies at Boise Public Library) Books and Videos
And Justice For All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps
The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans, by Frank F. Chuman
Behind Barbed Wire: The Imprisonment of Japanese Americans During World War II, by Daniel S. Davis
Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei, by Minoru Kiyota
Beyond Words: Images from America’s Concentration Camps, by Deborah Gesensway
Camp and Community: Manzanar and the Owens Valley, edited by Garrett and Larson
Concentration Camps, North America: Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II, by Roger Daniels
Democracy on Trial: The Japanese-American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II, by Page Smith
Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family, by Yoshiko Uchida
Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Great Betrayal: The Evacuation of the Japanese-Americans During World War II, by Audrie Girdner
Hunt for Idaho: Evacuees 1942-1945 and Homesteaders 1947-1949 T.P. Minidoka Prisoner of War Camp 1942-1945, by Bessie Shrontz Roberts-Wright
Impounded People: Japanese-Americans in the Relocation Centers, War Relocation Authority
Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple, by Louis Fiset
Issei and Nisei; The Internment Years, by Daisuke Kitagawa
Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress, edited by Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano
Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz, by Sandra C. Taylor
Journey to Minidoka: The Paintings of Roger Shimomura, by Roger Shimomura
Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases, by Peter H. Irons
Manzanar, by John Armor and Peter Wright
Minidoka Interlude, September, 1942-October 1943
Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and his Internment Writings, 1942-1945,by Yamato Ichihashi
Nisei Daughter, by Monica Itoi Sone
Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience
Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese American in World War II, by Roger Daniels
Remembering Heart Mountain: Essays on Japanese American Internment in Wyoming, edited by Mike Mackey
Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family, by Lauren Kessler
Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment, by Chiura Obata
Visible Target
What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean?
Whispered Silence: Japanese Americans and World War II, by Gary Y. Okihiro
Years Of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, by Michi Weglyn War Relocation Authority Material(Boise Public Library Government Documents, third floor)
Administrative Highlights of the WRA Program
Community Government in War Relocation Centers
The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Description
Legal and Constitutional Phases of the WRA Program
Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
People in Motion: The Postwar Adjustment of the Evacuated Japanese Americans
Relocation of Japanese-Americans
The Relocation Program
Wartime Exile: The Exclusion of the Japanese Americans From the West Coast
The Wartime Handling of Evacuee Property
WRA: A Story of Human Conservation Magazine Articles“The Japanese American Experience in Idaho,” Robert C. Sims. Idaho Yesterdays Spring 1978 v.22 n.1 p.2-10 “’My Dear Bishop’: a Report From Minidoka,” Jane Chase. Idaho Yesterdays Summer 2000 v.44 n.2 p.3-6 “’You Don’t Need to Wait Any Longer to Get Out’: Japanese American Evacuees as Farm Laborers During World War II,” Robert C. Sims. Idaho Yesterdays Summer 2000 v.44 n.2 pp. 7-13 Web SitesWar Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1945 Japanese American Internment Camps The Kooskia Internment Camp Project: University of Idaho's Asian-American Comparative Collection
Research and text by Ellen Druckenbrod, Boise Public Library Last updated: November 13, 2008 - 10:50am by farrit
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