Relocation and Internment: Civil Rights Lessons from World War II

Author(s): Todd T. Kunioka and Karen M. McCurdy

Source: PS: Political Science and Politics , Jul., 2006, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 503-511
Published by: American Political Science Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20451791

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Relocation and Internment: Civil Rights Lessons
from World War II
Todd T. Kunioka, California State University, Los Angeles
Karen M. McCurdy, Georgia Southern University
eginning in March 1942, three
months following the Japanese attack
at Pearl Harbor, and lasting until as
many as 16 months following the end of
World War II, slightly more than 120,000
persons of Japanese ancestry were ex
cluded, detained, and held in "relocation
centers" by the United States govern
ment, ostensibly because they were con
sidered a threat to national security.
Nearly 70% were American citizens by
birth; the rest were Japanese nationals
who were legally barred from naturaliza
tion because of the de jure racist policies
of the time (Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano
1991). Despite this treatment, over 1,200
individuals volunteered to serve in the
U.S. armed forces while several thousand
others were drafted from the relocation
centers. Most served in a segregated unit
in the European Theater, while others
served as interpreters in the Pacific The
ater, all while their families remained
behind barbed wire in relocation centers.
These individuals served with great dis
tinction within some of the most highly
decorated units of the U.S. Army (Crost
1994).
Some who refused to abide by the
curfew or exclusion orders challenged
the constitutionality of applying these
restrictions to U.S. citizens on the basis
of racial ancestry. These resisters were
convicted, and their convictions were
upheld by Supreme Court rulings in
1943 and 1944. In those decisions, the
Court argued it was not in a position to
question claims of military necessity. In
the mid-1980s these convictions were
vacated via federal court orders for writ
of error coram nobis,1 which helped
spur passage of the Civil Liberties Act of
Todd T. Kunioka is assistant professor of
political science. He teaches courses in public
administration and public policy as well as
the introductory American government class
at California State University, Los Angeles.
Karen M. McCurdy is associate professor
of political science at Georgia Southern
University. Her research focuses on policy
change and Congress, particularly the condi
tions under which policy minorities achieve
policy influence in Congress.
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1988. This law provided a formal apol
ogy and redress from the nation in the
amount of $20,000 for each surviving
internee. President George H. W. Bush
signed the first letters of apology to indi
viduals in 1990, and the Office of Re
dress Administration closed in 1999
having distributed redress payments to
82,220 claimants.
This dramatic example of national
paranoia and unvarnished racism in time
of war, followed by reexamination and
redemption, can be used to illustrate
many facets of the policy making pro
cess. Yet this story is completely missing
from many American government text
books, and glossed over in most others.
For example, Japanese American reloca
tion and internment was not mentioned
at all in 11 of 28 popular introductory
American government texts reviewed in
2000. Only three included a discussion
of more than nine sentences.2 This is
unfortunate, because an understanding of
World War II internment is essential to
place the current "War on Terror" poli
cies into historical context.
In this article, we supplement textbook
coverage of World War II relocation and
internment by providing an annotated
listing of widely available Internet re
sources, and suggest possible exercises
for students in introductory political sci
ence classes. We focus on free Internet
electronic data sources to help overcome
the traditional barriers of geography and
the limited budgets of libraries and col
lege students.
Our presentation proceeds by theme;
however, significant overlap and repeti
tion of sites occurs between themes. Our
survey begins with those sites that pro
vide a general overview of the relocation
process, then moves on to specialized
sources that can be used to explore spe
cific issues in greater depth.
The ephemeral nature of some web
sites can be problematic for classroom
use. Instructors will want to preview the
referenced sites to be sure the links are
still current, and may wish to explore the
use of archival software such as Furl
(www.furl.net/learnMore.jsp) to preserve
access to sites for the duration of the
term. In addition, instructors should pre
pare discussion or research questions to
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guide the students in their reading and
viewing. Also, some of the sites we dis
cuss are companion sites to an accompa
nying video, so, of course, a classroom
screening of the video might serve as an
introduction to the topic for students.
And, finally, particularly when students
are exploring primary documents and
photographs, it is important that they be
aware of the circumstances surrounding
the creation of those objects. For exam
ple, were any restrictions imposed on the
authors or photographers whose work
they are viewing? Students need to have
some understanding of the context before
they can start looking at the primary
documents in a meaningful way.
General Overview
Several sites provide a good overview
of the entire relocation process, including
the mechanics of mass incarceration. One
possible starting place (for both student
and instructor alike) is "A More Perfect
Union," at http://americanhistory.si.edu/
perfectunion/experience/index.html.
This traveling exhibit spent much of the
1990s crisscrossing the country, before
becoming a permanent online exhibit
of the Smithsonian Institution. Another
good starting place is the Hirasaki Na
tional Resource Center (HNRC), the
digital research center of the Japanese
American National Museum (wwwjanm.
org/nrc/resources.php). Novices will find
several fact sheets linked to this page,
while more advanced users can link to
numerous primary documents and first
person narratives that can be used for
classroom research projects.3
Another abundant source of internment
related information is the web page for the
National Park Service's Manzanar Na
tional Historic Site (www.nps.gov/manz).
At its peak, the Manzanar War Relocation
Center held over 10,000 relocated individ
uals, more than any other War Relocation
Authority (WRA) center. It was desig
nated a national historic site in 1992. The
web site contains much information, both
past and present, about Manzanar, as well
as about many other relocation centers,
assembly centers, and other places
associated with the relocation and intern
ment of civilians. Of particular interest
on the Manzanar site is the link to the tions on property ownership were the who married a U.S. citizen automatically
full text (and most of the photos) of Con norm and not the exception at the time acquired the citizenship of her husband,
finement and Ethnicity: An Overview of our policy makers were weighing the after 1922 the woman retained her own
World War II Japanese Americans Relo need for mass incarceration. Otherwise, citizenship. A woman who married a man
cation Sites (www.cr.nps.gov/history/ it would be much too easy to dismiss a ineligible for citizenship (which generally
online_books/anthropology74/index. claim of racial bias as the basis for these meant an Asian man) lost her U.S. citi
htm). This book was published by the decisions as "too simplistic." Fortunately, zenship. Further, even if her marriage
National Park Service's Western Archeo several sites on the Intemet can help were later dissolved either by death or di
logical and Conservation Center in 1999. place the intemment decision into proper vorce, an Asian woman who had lost her
Chapter three of this book discusses the historical context. The third chapter of U.S. citizenship through marriage was
relocation process in general, while other Confinement and Ethnicity (www.cr.nps. not eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship.
chapters describe the history of each of gov/history/online_books/anthropology By contrast, a Caucasian woman who had
the 10 WRA camps, the 15 assembly cen 74/ce3.htm), along with the Legalizing lost her U.S. citizenship through marriage
ters operated by the Wartime Civilian Racism (http://americanhistory.si.edu/ to an alien ineligible for citizenship could
Control Agency, and the various other perfectunion/non-flash/immigration_ apply to regain her U.S. citizenship after
facilities associated with the mass incar racism.html) and Resources (http:// the dissolution of her marriage.
ceration process. These chapters also dis americanhistory.si.edu /perfectunion/
cuss the extant anthropological artifacts resources/history.html) links of the
First-Person Accounts
and evidence of this period uncovered Smithsonian's exhibit provide a passing
during a comprehensive physical explora note on the anti-Japanese, anti-Asian, Some people find it easier to grasp the
tion of these sites between 1994 and and otherwise racist policies of the time. implications and effects of large events
1999. Field trips to visit the relocation More detailed information can be lo by focusing on the experiences of indi
centers are a possibility for those in close cated elsewhere on the Intemet. For ex viduals caught up in the forces of history.
geographic proximity. ample, KQED in San Francisco (www. Many documentaries now available on
The Harry S. Truman Presidential kqed.org/w/baywindow/othercolors/ video and/or DVD contain interviews
Library (www.trumanlibrarv.oro/whistle changingtimes/) and the National Ar with neonle who lived through the relo
stop/study_collections, cation process. Stu
japanese_intemment/ dents can thus see
background.html) is people and places
another good place to mentioned in their
visit early in your reading about reloca
browsing. Novices tion. Of particular in
should probably start terest is Of Civil
with the chronology, Wrongs and Rights:
but more advanced The Fred Korematsu
students will want to Story and the accom
browse the links to panying materials
digital copies of pri available on PBS's
mary documents and Point of View (P.O.V.)
photographs from the archive (www.pbs.org/
relocation camps. pov/pov200 1 /ofcivil
Our final overview wrongsandrights/).
web site, on geocities. This work helps place
com is not connected a human face on an
with any institution otherwise "larger
or university. This than-life" figure of
site, www.geocities. Supreme Court litiga
com/athens/8420/ tion fame.
main.html, authored Members of the
by C. John Yu, began Heart Mountain Fair
as an undergraduate Play Committee (an
history project and organization of
has been expanded intemees who refused
and supplemented to An Asian American family arrives at the Manzanar War Relocation Center.
to be drafted into the
Photo: Library of Congress.
become one of the U.S. armed services
most comprehensive while they and their
and well-documented sources of informa chives (www.archives.gov/publications/ families' civil rights were being violated)
tion about the relocation process. It also prologue/I 998/summer/women-and are the focus of another PBS documen
contains links to numerous other web naturalization-l.html) both have pages tary, Conscience and the Constitution
sites conceming the relocation discussing, among other things, the 1922 (www.pbs.org/itvs/conscience/). Some
experience. Cable Act (also known as the Marriage of the Fair Play Committee members
Act or Married Women's Act). While interviewed in Conscience and the Con
Historical Context sometimes noted as an important land stitution were also interviewed in a PBS
mark in women's history, this legislation P.O.V. program, Rabbit in the Moon
It is helpful to remind students that separated citizenship from marriage sta (www.pbs.org/pov/pov 1999/rabbitin
anti-miscegenation laws, segregated tus. Whereas prior to 1922, a U.S. citizen themoon/index.html). However, Rabbit
schools and public facilities, and restric who married an alien, or an alien woman in the Moon takes a broader view, and

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includes examples of resistance or pro
tests that occurred at Tule Lake and Man
zanar WRA camps. All three of the
aforementioned documentaries dramatize
the divisions within the Japanese Ameri
can community when it came to what a
"6proper" response to relocation should
be. Such disagreements over what actions
constitute "patriotism" could be a launch
ing point for class discussions on what it
means to be patriotic, and can also be
used as a starting point for an investiga
tion of the Arab American community's
contemporary efforts to discern an appro
priate response in the War on Terror.
In stark contrast to these stories of
open resistance is the story of those Jan
anese Americans who either
volunteered for service or were
drafted into the armed forces
(often times from inside the
barbed wire confines of reloca
tion camps). Such is the focus
of Beyond Barbed Wire
(www.asianamericanmedia.org/
apatv/archives/beyondbarbed
wire.html), a documentary
about the contributions made by
persons of Japanese ancestry
who served in either the Euro
pean or the Pacific theaters of
war. Beyond Barbed Wire uti
lizes interviews and contempo
rary footage, including newsreel
"propaganda" about the "All
Japanese" unit.4
Those seeking a more exten
sive collection of oral histories
should turn to the California
Digital Library (www.oac.cdlib.
org). The "Texts" tab (www.
oac.cdlib.org/texts/) links to
hundreds of primary documents
from relocation centers, as well
as transcripts from 67 oral histo
ries that are part of the Japanese
American Relocation Digital
Archive (JARDA, http://jarda.
cdlib.org/). Among those inter
viewed are first-, second-, and
third-generation Japanese Amer An Asian American boy awaits assignment on his first day at
icans, as well as camp adminis Manzanar War Relocation Center. Photo: Library of Congress.
trators, guards, and townspeople
from the area where the camps were
located.
Additional oral histories, gathered
through the "REgenerations Oral History
Project, can be accessed via the collec
tions guide of the previously-noted
HNRC (wwwjanm.org/collections/
guide/index.php), but you'll have to
browse this page carefully to find that
link. Also linked on this page are 25 oral
history interviews transcribed under the
Terminal Island Life History Project.
Oral histories from two individuals
that played a role in the formation of the
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internment policy (Karl Bendetsen and
Tom Clark) are also available via the
Truman Presidential Library (www.
trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_
collections/japanese-intemment/related.
php). In reading an oral history, the
reader should keep in mind the motiva
tions and imperfect recollection of the
interviewee. For example, in this oral
history, Bendetsen credits, among other
things, the Japanese invasion of the
Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska as
motivating the need to "evacuate" per
sons of Japanese ancestry from the west
coast. However, the Japanese did not
invade those islands until early June,
1942. over three months after E.O. 9066
was issued and the decision to evacuate
had been made. Further, it was known at
the time of the invasion that the Aleutian
campaign was a Japanese feint, intended
to divert U.S. naval forces from Midway
(Prange 1983).
Contemporaneous Views
Newspaper articles of that era that
describe the incarceration can be found
at the Virtual Museum of the City of San
Francisco (www.sfmuseum.org/war/
evactxt.html). Articles that appeared in
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the San Francisco News between March
2 and May 21, 1942, are linked. This site
also contains a number of other links of
interest, including a copy of "The Deci
sion to Evacuate the Japanese from the
Pacific Coast," by Stetson Conn,5 the
text of an evacuation poster, and the text
of a WRA book intended to "educate"
the general public about the relocation
program. Additionally, the site includes
several downloadable PowerPoint presen
tations. These presentations describe the
Tanforan Assembly Center, the Manzanar
War Relocation Center, and display some
of Dorothea Lange's photographs that
documented the evacuation of San
Francisco's Jananese Americans.
Students with access to
Lexis-Nexis (which, though not
free, is available to many stu
dents via library subscriptions)
can compare the post-Pearl Har
bor coverage noted above with
newspaper coverage of more
recent events, such as the
coram nobis cases of the 1980s,
or the post-9/11 coverage of the
War on Terror. Alternatively,
students with library access (or
personal online subscriptions)
may also be able to search a
number of major newspapers
via their online editions, partic
ularly for post-9/ 11 stories, and
stories relating to the enemy
combatant issue.
Photographs
The WRA and the Office of
War Information employed sev
eral prominent photographers
to document the internment.
Although these camp photos
were subject to censorship
(for example, no barbed wire
fences were to appear in these
official photographs), they
nonetheless do provide at least
a sanitized view of life in the
camps. The Library of Congress
web site has digital exhibits
committed to the work of Ansel
Adams (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
aamhtm1/aamhome.html) and Dorothea
Lange (www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/
wcfOO13.html) as they pertain to Japa
nese relocation.6 The Adams' web site
exhibit also includes a link to a digital
copy of the full text of his book, Born
Free and Equal (http://memory.loc.
gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamborn.html).
Published in 1944 by U.S. Camera,
the book provides both additional
contemporaneous commentary on the re
location and a stylized vision of life in
Manzanar.
 The Library of Congress holds addi
tional photos related to the Japanese
American internment in the Farm Security
Administration Open Files web site (http:
//lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/manzhtml/manzrel.
html).
Other photographs of the relocation
period can be found on the previously
mentioned web site for the Manzanar
National Historic Site (www.nps.gov/
manz), which includes numerous links
to photos of Manzanar and other camps,
both then and now. Also available
through the Manzanar NHS web site are
the book, Confinement and Ethnicity
(address noted previously, in the general
overview section) and a "virtual tour" of
the camp as it appears today (www.nps.
gov/manz/virtualtour/tour/). Finally, the
digital holdings of the National Archives
also contain numerous photographs of
the relocation era. They can be located
by using the search engine of the Na
tional Archives, ARC (http://arcweb.
archives.gov/arc/basic_search.jsp).
Searching on the names of the various
camps, or terms such as "Japanese" and
"internment" produces hundreds of
photographs of the relocation and camp
experience.
Judicial Review
One of the most relevant issues related
to WWII internment for current students
concerns the legal and constitutional prin
ciples of governmental "war powers." In
particular, are presidential and military
decisions made under a claim of "military
necessity" even subject to judicial review?
If so, how strictly must courts scrutinize
these claims? The ambitious student (par
ticularly those with experience reading
and interpreting court opinions) can ac
cess the full text of all Supreme Court
opinions since 1893 and appellate court
opinions since the mid-1990s (the specific
cut-off date varies by circuit) via Findlaw.
com's "Cases & Codes" link (www.
findlaw.com/casecode/). The opinions
can be browsed by year or party name.
With regard to World War II incarcera
tion, the major Japanese American cases
were decided in the Supreme Court in
1943 and 1944, with Gordon Hirabayashi,
Minoru Yasui, Mitsue Endo, and the
previously-noted Fred Korematsu as the
named litigants.7 In the Hirabayashi and
Yasui cases (1943), the Supreme Court
tailored their opinions narrowly to address
only the curfew issue, and avoided di
rectly addressing the actual exclusion and
detention. In the Korematsu case (1944),
the court again ruled relatively narrowly,
confining itself to the exclusion order but
not considering the matter of detention. In
Endo (1944), the Court ruled that admit
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tedly loyal persons could no longer be
excluded from the west coast.
The convictions of Hirabayashi, Yasui,
and Korematsu were re-litigated in the
early 1980s, after the convicts filed peti
tions for writ of error coram nobis.
However, as these cases never rose back
to the Supreme Court, and as the litiga
tion was resolved in the district or appel
late courts sufficiently long ago, most
of this material is not available via
free-access Internet sources. The lone
exception is the posting of some of the
briefs and petitions associated with Fred
Korematsu's case via the National Ar
chives ARC system (http://arcweb.
archives.gov/arc/basicsearch.j sp) .8
Keep in mind that understanding the sig
nificance of many of these documents
probably requires reading Irons (1983
and 1989).
A related case, Ex parte Quirin
(1942), involving would-be saboteurs
who were delivered via German sub
marines on to the Atlantic coast of the
United States, first established the cat
egory of "illegal" or "enemy" combatant
that the Bush administration had relied
upon to justify the indefinite detention of
individuals (including U.S. citizens)
without hearing or review. More recent
legal precedent, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, de
cided by the U.S. Supreme Court in
2004, has now mandated a review, but
not necessarily by a civilian court. In
addition to the Supreme Court rulings in
cases involving Hamdi, and Padilla v.
Rumsfeld (also decided in 2004, but on
jurisdictional rather than substantive
grounds), the appellate court decisions of
Hamdi and Padilla are available for re
view. The Padilla case arose out of the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals, while
the Hamdi originated from the Fourth
Circuit. Interested students can also
search the legal news and opinions (edi
torials) of Findlaw for legal commentary
and legal briefs on these and other cases.
Redress
After the World War II-era convic
tions of Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Kore
matsu were vacated, the pressure for a
formal government apology grew. While
we are not aware of any sites that are
committed specifically to investigating
the redress movement, a private site
does include an analysis of the text of
the apology letters sent by Presidents
George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to
accompany the redress payments
(www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/
history_heritage/ikeda_internment_
apology.asp). Images of each president's
letter (without commentary) are also
available; President Clinton's apology
July 2006
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letter is included on the web site for the
PBS-aired documentary, Children of the
Camps (www.pbs.org/childofcamp/
history/clinton.html), while President
Bush's letter (www.goethe-gymnasium.
de/schuelerseiten/LK12/Manzanar/
Apology/APOLOGYHTM) can be
viewed via a web site created by stu
dents from a school in Germany that
read the novel, Snow Falling on Ce
dars. The movie of the same name
(www.imdb.com/title/ttO120834/) itself
is also a good way to introduce students
to the complexity of racial tensions fol
lowing WWII.
Apologists for Internment
While professional historians are gen
erally in agreement that the World War II
intemment was a mistake, the decision is
not without its defenders. Most apolo
gists lack any formal training in law
or history, but this has not prevented
their work from attaining some level of
notoriety. Recently, conservative com
mentator Michelle Malkin's work
(2004), In Defense of Internment (www.
michellemalkin.com/books.htm), has
been in the news. Malkin argues that
"political correctness" has prevented an
"accurate" evaluation of the evidence
surrounding mass incarceration, and ar
gues that these false lessons of World
War II prevent a fair consideration of
appropriate modem-day responses in the
War on Terror.
In evaluating the substance of
Malkin's thesis, students would do well
to ask themselves what burden of proof
should be required before an individual
is denied his/her personal liberty. Is
guilt, in fact, individual, or is there such
a thing as collective guilt? Also, to what
extent can those depictions of persons of
Japanese ancestry also have been made
of persons of German or Italian ancestry?
Students could also consider the circum
stances surrounding the Quirin case in
deciding the relative threat of Japanese
invasion or espionage on the west coast
versus German or Italian invasion or es
pionage on the east or gulf coasts. Fur
ther investigation of the difference
between the way European and Asian
immigrants were treated can be used to
discuss de jure racism.
Students interested in specific rebuttals
to Malkin can read portions of the blog,
www.isthatlegal.org. The entire site can
be searched using keywords, although
most of the relevant material is located
at www.isthatlegal.org/Muller_and_
Robinson_on_Malkin.html. The home
page also links to the first chapter of
Muller's history (2001) of Japanese
American draft resisters, Free to Die for
Their Country (www.press.uchicago.edu/
Misc/Chicago/548228.html).
Conclusion
Internment and relocation are central
components of the ongoing work to se
cure civil rights for all American citi
zens and civil liberties for all. The
special circumstances of civil rights and
liberties during time of war are of par
ticular importance today. Students who
fail to understand that racism is transient
and invidious will too easily take away
the lesson that the 1960s Civil Rights
movement settled everything. Instead,
the Japanese relocation experience can
show that all people are capable of
great injustice when they are frightened
Notes
1. A petition for writ of error coram nobis
is a request that a court vacate a previous
conviction on the basis of newly available
evidence.
2. See Kunioka and McCurdy 2000.
3. The Museum's holdings of relocation
related materials expand far beyond what is
available via the Internet. Students in the Los
Angeles area may consider a visit to the museum
to conduct additional research in person.
4. A dramatized presentation of Japanese
Americans serving in the European theater with
the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat
Team can be seen in the 1951 MGM studios re
lease, Go For Broke, which starred Van John
son. Interestingly, the 2001 release of the DVD
Beyond Barbed Wire included the MGM movie
Go For Broke in the "bonus material," so that
References
Conn, Stetson. 1964. "The Decision to Evacuate
the Japanese from the Pacific Coast." In
Guarding the United States and its Out
posts, by Steson Conn, Rose C. Engelman,
and Byron Fairchild. Washington, D.C.: Cen
ter of Military History.
Crost, Lyn. 1994. Honor by Fire: Japanese
Americans at War in Europe and the Pa
cific. Novato, CA: Presidio Press.
Daniels, Roger, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry
H.L. Kitano, eds. 1991. Japanese Americans:
From Relocation to Redress. Seattle: Univer
sity of Washington Press.
Irons, Peter, ed. 1989. Justice Delayed:
The Record of the Japanese American
PSOnline www.apsanet.org 507
144.82.8.4 on Sat, 16 Mar 2024 11:24:56 +00:00
enough. Further, it is important in the
classroom to consider the complexity of
decision making: the ability for wrong
decisions to be made by good people
for all of the right reasons, and that the
process of recognizing error after the
fact is an important feature of a healthy
democracy.
For example, a man known as a
civil rights champion in the 1960s was
a major proponent of the policies that
stripped so many Japanese Americans
of their civil rights in the 1940s. Was
there a change in Earl Warren, or was it
the difference in the positions he held
which influenced his behavior? His be
havior was very different as California
attorney general, arguing for Japanese
American relocation in 1942, than as
an instructor could show students both a docu
mentary and dramatization of the same events.
Go For Broke was also the title Senator Daniel
Inouye gave to the excerpt of his autobiography,
Journey to Washington (Prentice Hall, 1967)
that appears on his Senate web site (http://
inouye. senate.gov/gfb/).
5. The article by Stetson Conn, "The Deci
sion to Evacuate the Japanese from the Pacific
Coast," is drawn from chapter five of the Center
of Military History's Guarding the United States
and its Outposts, by Stetson Conn, Rose C. En
gelman, and Byron Fairchild. The book is part of
the Center of Military History's series, The United
States Army in World War II. It can be regarded
as the Army's "official" history of World War II.
The entire book is available online at: www.army.
mil/cmh/books/wwii/Guard-US/index.htm.
Internment Cases. Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan.
-. 1983. Justice at War: The Story of the
Japanese American Internment Cases.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kunioka, Todd, and Karen M. McCurdy. 2000.
"The Fog of Wartime Relocation: What
Everybody Already Knows About the
Relocation of Japanese Americans During
World War II, Some of Which is Even
Correct." Presented at the Annual Meeting
of the Western Political Science Associa
tion, San Jose, CA. Copies available on
request.
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Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in
building the unanimous decisions in
Brown v. Board of Education in 1954
and 1955.
It is this process that government will
never outgrow or eliminate: making mis
takes, justifying mistakes, owning up to
mistakes only after being pushed by con
cerned citizens, and apologizing for mis
takes. Our students deserve to learn the
conditions in which government errors
are committed and resolved. Acknowl
edging error, making recompense, and
asking forgiveness is important, for both
individuals and nations. Apologizing is
much more rare than making mistakes,
and this is an important political phe
nomenon for informed citizens to
understand.
6. Additional relocation-related photographs
by Dorothea Lange are available via the previ
ously mentioned California Digital Library
(www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/
ft3f59n5wt/C02/378959286).
7. The cases were Hirabayashi v United
States (320 U.S. 81, 1943); Yasui v United
States (320 U.S. 115, 1943); Korematsu v
United States (323 U.S. 214, 1944); and ex
Parte Mitsuye Endo (323 U.S. 283, 1944).
8. Briefs, petitions, and court opinions from
the district and appellate court concerning the
coram nobis litigation can be located via Lexis
Nexus Academic. However, unlike our other
cited sources, this one is not available without a
library subscription.
Malkin, Michelle. 2004. In Defense of Intern
ment: The Case for Racial Profiling in
World War II and the War on Terror. Wash
ington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing.
Muller, Eric L. 2001. Free to Die for Their
Country: The Story of the Japanese Ameri
can Draft Resisters in World War II. Chi
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Prange, Gordon William. 1983. Miracle at Mid
way. New York: Penguin.
Robinson, Greg. 2001. By Order of the Presi
dent: FDR and the Internment of Japanese
Americans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni
versity Press.
Annotated Bibliography
"Internment and the Internet": List of Cited Web Sites, with Annotations
California Digital Library-Online Archive of California
www.oac.cdlib.org
Homepage for the Online Archive of California. Click on tabs to search for texts or images.
www.oac.cdlib.org/texts/
Search page for texts and documents. Includes link to Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive [JADRDA]. Also
includes links to 67 oral histories and 309 other documents related to relocation. Interviews with incarcerated
individuals, guards, townspeople, and administrators of World War II era camps.
http;//jarda.cdlib.org/
Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive. Links to discussion and other sources related to Japanese American
internment.

www.oac.cdlib.org/search.image.html
Search page for images on the online archive.
www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft3f59n5wt/C02/378959286
Dorothea Lange collection, with links to various photographic exhibits, including the internment period.
Center for Asian American Media (Formerly National Asian American Telecommunications Association)
www.asianamericanmedia.org/apatv/archives/beyondbarbedwire.html
Description of the documentary, Beyond Barbed Wire.
Findlaw.com
www. f i nd law. com
To locate court opinions and legal commentary on both historical and contemporary legal issues.
Search under www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html to locate Supreme Court opinions on cases. Site can be
searched by year, by volume, by party name or by citation number. Or, from the homepage, search under Search
FindLaw or Search News to locate commentary on contemporary or historical issues.
Furl
www.furl.net/learnMore.jsp
Commercial site used to archive web sites for future use. Protects against changes on the Internet.
Goethe-Gymnasium, Dusseldorf, Germany
http://www.goethe-gymnasium.de/schuelerseiten/LK12/Manzanar/Apology/APOLOGY.HTM
Apology letter from George H.W. Bush that accompanied redress payments. This web site grew out of a class reading
Snow Falling on Cedars.
Hirasaki National Resource Center
See Japanese American National Museum
Ikeda, Stewart David
www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/history_heritage/ikeda internment apology.asp
Comparison of Bush and Clinton apology letters that accompanied the redress payments authorized in 1988. Text of
apology letters are included.
Inouye, Daniel.
http://inouye.senate.gov/gfb
Homepage for the excerpt of Senator Daniel Inouye's autobiography, Journey to Washington (Prentice-Hall, 1967).
These excerpts, titled, Go for Broke, focus on his experience as a member of the 100th Battalion (Separate) and the
442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.
Internet Movie Database
www.imdb.com/title/tt0120834/
IMDB is a good place to search for "quickie" information on virtually any movie or television show that ever aired m
the U.S. Cited in-text for information about Snow Falling on Cedars.
Japanese American National Museum
www.janm.org
Information and links, including:

www.janm.org/nrc/resources.php
Includes many additional links, including links to "fact sheets," to other museums and organizations, to digital
collections relating to several relocation centers, and to oral histories of numerous individuals who were incarcerated
during the war.
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Annotated Bibliography
Continued
Japanese American National Museum (continued)
www.janm.org/collections/guide/index.php
Collections Guide to the Japanese American National Museum. Links to transcripts gathered through the
REgenerations Oral History Project and the Terminal Island Life History Project. Also links to photos, sketches,
paintings, and other representations of life in the camps, as well as other aspects of the Japanese American
experience.
KQED
www.kaed.org/w/baywindow/othercolors/changingtimes/
Chronology from the program, "Other Colors: Being Multiracial in America" detailing significant events in the history of
intermarriage and interracial peoples.
Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamhome.html
Links to Ansel Adams photos.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamborn.html
Full text (in digital format) of Born Free and Equal, a book that included Adams' photographs of Manzanar and its
residents.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/manzhtml/manzrel.html
Farm Security Administration site with links to hundreds of Ansel Adams photographs spanning the relocation period.
www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html
Dorothea Lange exhibit. Photographs of the removal of Japanese and Japanese Americans from San Francisco, and
other Depression-era and WWII-era photographs.
Malkin, Michelle
www.michellemalkin.com/books.htm
Link for information on her books, including In Defense of Internment. Link to some reviews, rebuttals, and op-ed pieces
concerning this book.
Muller, Eric
wwwjsthatlegalorg
This is a blog, so new entries are added daily [usually several times daily]. Various issues may be addressed, but a
recurring issue is that of Japanese American World War II relocation. M?ller is law professor at the University of North
Carolina, and author of the book, Free to Die for Their Country, Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001. He and Greg
Robinson [A professor of History at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and author of the book, By Order of the
President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001]. Have
compiled numerous critiques of Michelle Malkin's book, In Defense of Internment [See below]. The whole blog can also
be searched by keyword.
www.isthatlegal.org/Muller_and_Robinson_on_Malkin.html
Note that this address is case-sensitive. Many of M?ller and Robinson's critiques of Malkin's book are located here.
Other critiques appear scattered elsewhere on the blog. Understanding the significance of many of the critiques
requires a relatively advanced level of knowledge of the relocation process.
www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/548228.html
First chapter of Mutier's book, Free to Die for Their Country.
National Archives and Records Administration
www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1 .html
Issue of Prologue magazine that includes a discussion of the 1992 Cable Act.
http://arcweb.archives.qov/arc/basic search.?sp
Search form for documents. For example, a search using "Japanese internment" produced matches for documents
relating to Fred Korematsu's coram nobis petition and his original conviction. This includes a portion of the "Final
Report" as originally produced by DeWitt. Alterations made between the version available here and the final published
version provided some of the evidence used to vacate the convictions of Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui for refusing
to "evacuate" to the relocation centers during WWII. Plaintiff briefs and the government's response briefs are also
available as digital documents.
A search of "Manzanar" produces links to nearly 500 photos of the camp. Large numbers of photos are located for
searches of Gila River, Poston, Heart Mountain, Minidoka, and other camp names.
Check the box near top of search form to limit "hits" to digital documents and records that you can view directly.
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Annotated Bibliography
Continued
National Park Service
www. n ps. gov/ma nz/
Homepage for Manzanar National Historic Site. Includes links to:
www.nps.gov/manz/virtualtour/tour/
"Virtual Tour," from "In Depth" page
www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/index.htm
Full text of NPS Western Archeoloqical and Conservation Center book, Confinement and Ethnicity. To qet here, click
on "History and Culture" from theWpage.
www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce3.htm
(Chapter three of text).
PBS
www.pbs.org
Can be searched to find links to pages intended for viewing along with documentaries, including:
www.pbs.org/pov/pov2001 /ofcivilwrongsandrights/
Homepage for the PBS Point of View Documentary, Of Civil Rights and Wrongs: The Fred Korematsu Story. Discusses
both the original circumstances of Fred Korematsu's arrest and conviction for refusing to obey the mass exclusion
order, and his subsequent coram nobis challenge to have his conviction vacated. Includes interviews with Korematsu,
his wife, children, and many of the lawyers and others involved in both the original and the coram nobis litigation.
www.pbs.orq/itvs/conscience/
Homepage for the PBS documentary, Conscience and the Constitution. This documentary focuses on the WWII
Japanese American draft resisters, particularly those from the Heart Mountain, WY WRA center. This story illustrates
the schism between the JACL and those that sought a less collaborationist approach to mass incarceration. It also
provides an interesting contrast with Beyond Barbed Wire in that both those that resisted induction into the armed
forces and those that volunteered for service out of the camps believed they were motivated by patriotism and
American values.

www.pbs.orq/pov/povl999/rabbitinthemoon/index.html
Homepage for the PBS Point of View documentary, The Rabbit in the Moon. Documentary touches on numerous cases
of Japanese American protest and resistance to World War ll-era treatment by the U.S. government.
www.pbs.org/childofcamp/index.html
Homepage for the PBS documentary, Children of the Camps. This documentary brings together a half-dozen
individuals who were incarcerated as children so that they can explore the ways in which their lives are still shaped
by their camp experience. Includes a link to the Clinton apology letter.

www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/clinton.html
President Clinton's letter of apology that accompanied redress payments.
Smithsonian Institute

http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/index.html
Exhibit, "A More Perfect Union," concerning the relocation of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/immigration_racism.html
"Legalizing racism" link, under "immigration" link, for "A More Perfect Union."
http://americanhistorysi.edu/perfectunion/resources/history.html
Timeline for relocation and related events.

Harry S Truman Presidential Library

www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese__internment/background.htm
Links to documents, photographs, and oral histories, and lesson plans. Includes digital documents of contemporary
congressional hearings, letters, etc, WRA photographs of Manzanar, and oral histories from Tom Clark and Karl
Bendetsen, two people who influenced and were in a position to observe the decision process leading to incarceration.
www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/related.php
Oral histories link for the Truman Library. Oral histories of Karl Bendetsen (at the time of the incarceration, he was an
army colonel who served as Assistant Chief of Staff of the Fourth Army and Western Defense Command and
commanding officer of the Wartime Civilian Control Administration that was charged with carrying out E.O. 9066) and
Tom C Clark (Coordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Unit for the Western Defense Command).
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Annotated Bibliography
Continued
Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
www.sfmuseum.org/war/evactxt.html
Exhibit on the Japanese American relocation. Includes links to newspaper articles from the San Francisco News
published as exclusion was being executed, the text of an evacuation notice, and Stetson Conn's chapter on The
Decision to Evacuate the Japanese from the West Coast. Also includes PowerPoint presentations for download, including
presentations of Dorothea Lange's photographs of the "evacuation," of the Manzanar WRA center, and of the Tanforan
Assembly Center.
www.sfmuseum.org/histo/conn.html
Copy of Stetson Conn's The Decision to Evacuate the Japanese from the West Coast. Also available at:
www.army.mil/CMH-PG/BOOKS/
70-7_05.htm
www.sfmuseum.org/hist9/evacorder.html
Text of an evacuation notice.

Yu, C John
www.geocities.com/athens/8420/main.html
Very comprehensive narrative about the relocation experience. Not formally affiliated with any museum or academic
institution, but professionally written and presented, and well-documented.

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