Voices from the Archives

Executive Order 9066

E. O. 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942—two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II. It laid the foundation for the United States to deem the West Coast a Military Exclusion Zone, from which perceived dangers to national security could be legally removed. Their justification to deny personal liberty to American citizens and foreign aliens alike was declared “military necessity.”

Regardless of birthplace, education, or class, all persons of Japanese ancestry—roughly 120,000 —were systematically removed from this area and placed in local assembly centers before being transferred to War Relocation Authority (WRA) internment camps.

Architect of Internment?

Many people advised President Roosevelt on the matter of internment; afterward even more were left to craft action plans and conduct the actual evacuations and relocations. A lynch pin in this work was Colonel Karl R. Bendetsen, a Stanford alumnus whose papers are housed in the Hoover Archives. A clear summary of Bendetsen’s reasoning for internment—focusing on sabotage, espionage and fifth-column activities—is articulated in his address “The Story of Pacific Coast Japanese Evacuation.”

Photography of the internment process, facilities, and daily life was largely regulated by the government. Select photographers, such as Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, were hired to document the evacuation and relocation projects; personal cameras were forbidden to internees. Regardless of the photographer’s wishes, all WRA photographs went through centralized processing where there was strict control over captioning and distribution—ensuring that mainly anonymous smiling faces were shown publicly.

The documentary film A Challenge to Democracy was one of many WRA promotional pieces intended to highlight the success of relocation and improve public perceptions of Japanese Americans for their eventual reintegration into society. The front cover shows seventy-year-old Sakutaro Aso and his grandson Shigeo Jerry Aso waiting to be deported from Hayward, California, in 1942. The back cover shows Hisako Hibi with her children Ibuki and Satoshi also waiting in Hayward to go to Tanforan Assembly Center.

Dispossessed was published by the American Friends Service Committee circa 1943–44. The cover photograph of a grandfather and grandson was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1942 for the WRA at Manzanar, California. With no personal identification, the pictured internees anonymously gaze at viewers whom the publishers hoped would donate goods to help improve the lives of those interned.

They Work for Victory, The Story of Japanese Americans and the War Effort is a pamphlet produced by the WRA in 1944, with a cover photograph taken by Tom Parker. Highlighting the WRA efforts to reintegrate relocated Japanese Americans into society, the cover features Ruth Nishi, a twenty-one-year-old operating a turret lathe to make parts for gas valves for the Bloomfield Mfg. Co. in August 1943. Originally from Berkeley, Nishi had been sent to the Poston Camp in Arizona before relocating to Chicago.

Azeka, Gotanda, Horiuchi Families

Taketaro Azeka—a barber by trade, but a poet and artist by practice—was the patriarch of the Azeka, Gotanda, and Horiuchi families. With far more trunks than they could carry, the families entrusted their possessions to their friends the Von Blon family. The letters from Azeka and his daughters to the Von Blons reveal camp life vividly; a reference letter Mrs. Von Blon wrote on behalf of Azeka’s daughter, Shizuko Horiuchi, reflects the difficult procedures required to regain some individual freedom.

The Kumano Family

Chisato came to America in 1920 after marrying Takaji Kumano, who had emigrated in 1905. Although from a good family in Japan, with her little brother Yasamaru having been chosen as a playmate for Prince Akihito, Chisato and her family were evacuated from Palo Alto, eventually to find themselves in the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming.

In this letter to her friend Miss Minna Stillman, a librarian at Stanford University, she shares her pride in her family—one son leaving camp for college and her husband’s gardening—as well as her strength in coping with the reality that word from her teenage son and brother in Japan arrived only sporadically.

Years later, Chisato’s brother, Admiral Yasamaru Taniguchi, visited her family in Palo Alto from Japan. On the reverse of this photograph of the Kumanos with Taniguchi, she inscribed this poem to him in Japanese:

“Feel blessed that we are still alive to see and talk on and on to each other. / Is this a dream? / Went out to spring garden with you (Yasumaru [sic]) to view the Japanese apricot blossoms and scenery. / We reminisced our childhood life as an older sister with my younger brother: / We both successfully crossed over the mountain."

The Ono-Nagano Family

Born in California, Atsuko “Ann” Ono received her BA shortly before she and her parents were sent to the Fresno Assembly Center and later to the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas. But the harsh realities of camp life was not for her, and she was fortunately able to soon leave to attend the University of Michigan.

In Michigan Atsuko met Pat Nagano, a Stanford graduate who had escaped the Poston camp by joining Military Intelligence. They were soon married and had their daughter Karen at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, while their Japanese parents remained interned.

The Hoover Library

The Hoover Institution Library has extensive material on the Japanese American experience during the internment period of 1942–46. These holdings include original government publications, newsletters and pamphlets produced by Japanese Americans in the relocation camps, and an array of books covering both pro- and anti-internment sentiments. This material greatly enhances research potential for visiting scholars, students and the public. It also allows for a broad understanding of this tragic and life-altering period in American history.

Internment Camp Ephemera

Daily life at the camps could easily become monotonous, with an unknowable future leaving some Japanese Americans few hopes and dreams to strive for. To combat this depressing reality internees and camp administrators tried to normalize routines and activities as best they could.

Along with work, schools, church services and their own community governments, internees were allowed regular recreational activities—including sporting events, theatrical performances, concerts, gardening and art exhibitions. Each camp also created its own newspaper, and the availability of a press meant they were also able to print their own programs and invitations for events.

Schools at Internment Camps

Beginning in the fall of 1942, the War Relocation Authority introduced to the camps a system of education known as the"community school," an innovative program for primary and secondary schools crafted by educators at Stanford University.

A copy of the original Proposed Curriculum Procedures for Japanese Relocation Centers can be found in the Hoover Institution Library. It provides a unique glimpse into both the understanding of Americans towards the internees and how the government hoped for the Americanization of those at camp.