Documentos de campos de internamiento de japoneses-estadounidenses, Segunda Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos, 1942–1946

About the U.S., World War II Japanese-American Internment Camp Documents, 1942-1946

General collection information

This collection contains images of documents from Japanese American incarceration camps between 1942 and 1946. During World War II, the United States government unjustly detained more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, many of whom were US citizens.

These incarceration camps were referred to as "relocation centers," "assembly centers," and "internment camps." The following camps are included in the collection:

The collection includes a variety of records and documents including:

Using this collection

Records in this collection may include the following information:

If you had ancestors who were held at one of the incarceration camps featured in this collection, you may learn more about what life was like while they were detained. You may even find their name in one of the documents. The documents in this collection are also useful for anyone interested in learning more about the history of Japanese American incarceration camps. Under "Browse this collection," choose the camp that you want information about. Next, choose the type of record set you want to explore.

Please note, that the terms in this collection are from the original government documents, which often diminished the hardships faced by those in these records and may include offensive language.

Collection in context

The records and documents in this collection were created by camp officials and the people who were incarcerated in the camps. The images of the original documents are high-quality primary historical sources that may have information that cannot be found in other records. The original documents are housed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese immigrants, who like all Asian immigrants were barred from becoming naturalized, were classified as "enemy aliens" and thousands were immediately arrested by the Department of Justice and local law enforcement agencies and taken to coastal temporary detention centers and inland camps. German and Italian immigrants who had not naturalized were also considered enemy aliens and subject to the same loss of freedoms.

On February 19, 1942, about two months later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which led to the incarceration of all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast. Most were US citizens by birth. Altogether, more than 120,000 persons of Japanese descent, citizens and non-citizens, were incarcerated.

People of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forced out of their homes with only a week to gather what they could carry. They were taken to assembly centers, frequently located in racetracks and housed in horse stalls, then sent to incarceration camps, where they were met with barbed wire fences, communal living spaces with little-to-no privacy, extreme temperatures, and food shortages. Many were even initially forced to sleep on dirt floors.

To combat the hardships of the camps, they established newspapers, markets, and schools. Some camps also had post offices, work facilities, and land to grow food and raise livestock. Detainees protested when there were food shortages and overcrowded living conditions. Most people of Japanese ancestry remained incarcerated in these camps throughout the war, and it took several months after the war ended for the last camps to be closed in March 1946. Some Japanese Americans were released to serve in the U.S. military, and others were allowed to attend college in the midwest and east coast.

Japanese Americans lost about $400 million in property during their four years of internment. In 1948, the U.S. government paid $38 million in reparations, and in 1988 after an extended movement by former incarcerees and their descendants,, the government began paying $20,000 to each surviving detainee. Japanese Latin Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to the United States were excluded from these reparations, although many stayed in the country after being released. A 1982 Congressional study found that the incarceration camp system was based on a false premise because there was never evidence of espionage or sabotage by Japanese Americans during the war. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Citizens, appointed by the U.S. Congress, said the broad historical causes of incarceration were "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership."

Bibliography

History.com. "Japanese Internment Camps." Last modified October 29, 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation.

National Park Service. "Japanese American Life During Internment." Last modified March 6, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/articles/japanese-american-incarceration-archeology.htm.

The National Archives. "Research or Records." Accessed October 4, 2023. https://www.archives.gov/research.

The National WWII Museum. "Japanese American Incarceration." Accessed October 4, 2023. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration.