japanese americans

People of Japanese descent wait in line for their assigned homes at an internment camp reception center in Manzanar, Calif., the same camp in which John Tateishi was detained as a child.

Books

The Unlikely Story Behind Japanese Americans' Campaign For Reparations

8:25am March 24, 2020

by Isabella Rosario

In his new book Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations, John Tateishi recounts the fight for justice in the wake of World War II internment camps.

During a visit last week to the California Museum in Sacramento, Les Ouchida holds a 1943 photo of himself (front row center) and his siblings taken at the internment camp in Jerome, Ark., that his family was moved to from their home near Sacramento in 19

California Lawmakers Expected To Apologize For U.S. Internment Of Japanese Americans

12:07pm February 20, 2020

The bill's sponsor says he was "disturbed by the striking parallels" between the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and current U.S. immigration policy.

Books
Arts

George Takei Recalls Time In An American Internment Camp In 'They Called Us Enemy'

11:13am July 17, 2019

by Etelka Lehoczky

Through his graphic memoir, the Star Trek actor-turned-author shows that while it may be too late to undo the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, it's not too late to learn from it.

Two reconstructed buildings stand in the former Manzanar War Relocation Center. Once, 10,046 people were imprisoned here.

Walking In Their Footsteps At A Former Japanese Internment Camp

4:01am April 29, 2017

by Melissa Hung

"I wanted to see Manzanar with my own eyes, so that my understanding of history might feel deeper through the experience of place."

The perception of universal success among Asian-Americans is being wielded to downplay racism's role in the persistent struggles of other minority groups, especially black Americans.

'Model Minority' Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks

2:30pm April 19, 2017

by Kat Chow

The perception of universal success among Asian-Americans is being wielded to downplay racism's role in the persistent struggles of other minority groups — especially black Americans.

Many of the Japanese Americans incarcerated at Tule Lake had been farmers before the war. At camp, they were employed as field workers, often for $12 a month. Here, incarcerees work in a carrot field.

National

Farming Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration

7:00am February 19, 2017

by Lisa Morehouse

Many of the incarcerated were farmers, coerced to work the land in the camps. The food they grew was meant for the incarcerated but camp administrators sold it on the open market. Resistance ensued.

Roy Ebihara and his wife, Aiko, at StoryCorps in Oberlin, Ohio. Both were in Japanese internment camps in the 1940s.

Couple Moves On From Silence About Time In Japanese Internment Camps

12:59pm February 17, 2017

by NPR Staff

This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's executive order that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans. We hear from two people who were interned when they were children.

Queue Listen Now

Pictures of people who were incarcerated at Manzanar War Relocation Center are displayed alongside family tags at Manzanar National Historic Site near Independence, Calif., in 2015.

There's A Long, Ignominous Trail Of Bans, Registries And Forced Relocation

9:13pm February 02, 2017

by Jorge Encinas

The travel ban imposed by the president a week ago on people from seven Muslim-majority countries is only the latest executive order through the years grounded in race, ethnicity or country of origin.