Pictures of the Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II

Two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast. This resulted in the relocation of approximately 120,000 people, many of whom were American citizens, to one of 10 internment camps located across the country. Traditional family structure was upended within the camp, as American-born children were solely allowed to hold positions of authority. Some Japanese-American citizens of were allowed to return to the West Coast beginning in 1945, and the last camp closed in March 1946. In 1988, Congress awarded restitution payments to each survivor of the camps.

Tom Kobayashi stands in the south fields of the Manzanar Relocation Center, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in California's Owens Valley, in 1943. Famed photographer Ansel Adams traveled to Manzanar in 1943 to document the Relocation Center and the Japanese Americans interned there. Ansel Adams/LOC

This store owned by a man of Japanese ancestry is closed following evacuation orders in Oakland, California, in April of 1942. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the owner had placed the "I Am An American" sign in the store front window. AP Photo/ Dorothea Lange

Two plainclothes men, left, watch as Japanese aliens are removed from their homes on Terminal Island, a vital Naval and Shipbuilding center in Los Angeles, California, on February 3, 1942. Some 400 male Japanese aliens -- Terminal Island residents -- were rounded up early on February 2 by 180 federal, city and county officers. AP Photo/Ira W. Guldner

On a brick wall beside an air raid shelter poster, exclusion orders were posted at First and Front Streets in San Francisco, California, directing the removal of persons of Japanese ancestry from the first part of San Francisco to be affected by the evacuation. The order was issued April 1, 1942, by Lieutenant General J.L. DeWitt, and directed evacuation from this section by noon on April 7, 1942. NARA

Japanese heads of family and persons living alone form a line outside Civil Control Station located in the Japanese American Citizens League Auditorium in San Francisco, California, to appear for "processing" in response to Civilian Exclusion Order Number 20, on April 25, 1942. NARA

How the evacuation of Japanese from Seattle would affect a second grade class in a local school is shown in these two views in Seattle, Washington, on March 27, 1942. At the top is a crowded classroom with many Japanese pupils and at the bottom is the same class without the Japanese students. AP Photo

A farmhouse in a rural section of Mountain View, California, where farmers of Japanese ancestry raised market garden crops. Evacuees from this and other military areas were later moved to War Relocation Authority centers. NARA

Many evacuated children attended Raphael Weill Public School, in San Francisco, California. Rachel Karumi, photographed here in 1942, will be among them. NARA

A farewell letter posted in a window of T.Z. Shiota, an importer in San Francisco's Chinatown, in April of 1942, prior to evacuation of residents of Japanese ancestry. The final paragraph reads: "At this hour of evacuation when the innocents suffer with the bad, we bid you, dear friends of ours, with the words of beloved Shakespeare, 'PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW'." NARA

Two friends play one final game while awaiting evacuation, in San Francisco, California, in early 1942. NARA

View of a business district on Post Street in a San Francisco neighborhood occupied by residents of Japanese ancestry, before evacuation, in 1942. NARA

A soldier and his mother in a strawberry field near Florin, California, on May 11, 1942. The soldier, age 23, had volunteered for the Army on July 10, 1941, and was stationed at Camp Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was furloughed to help his mother and family prepare for their evacuation. He is the youngest of six children, two of them volunteers in United States Army. The mother, age 53, came from Japan 37 years ago. Her husband died 21 years ago, leaving her to raise six children. She worked in a strawberry basket factory until last year when her children leased three acres of strawberries "so she wouldn't have to work for somebody else". NARA

Persons of Japanese ancestry from San Pedro, California, arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly center in Arcadia, California, in 1942. Evacuees lived at this center at the Santa Anita race track before being moved inland to other relocation centers. NARA

A scene during one of many transfers of Japanese American evacuees from Assembly Centers to War Relocation Centers in 1942. LOC

Japanese Americans are being vaccinated by fellow evacuees upon arrival at the Assembly center in Arcadia, California, in 1942. NARA

A Japanese farmer and his daughter view the strawberry farm they must leave on Bainbridge Island, in Washington, on March 23, 1942. LOC

A crowd of onlookers in Seattle jam an overhead walk to witness the mass evacuation of Japanese from Bainbridge Island, Washington, on March 30, 1942. Somewhat bewildered, but not protesting, some 225 Japanese men, women and children were taken by ferry, bus and train to California internment camps. The evacuation was carried out by the U.S. Army. AP Photo

This bus, bringing evacuees of Japanese ancestry to the Colorado River War Relocation Authority center, has become sand-bound near its destination, near Poston, Arizona in 1942. NARA

Evacuees of Japanese ancestry were not permitted to use their automobiles at War Relocation Authority centers. Cars brought to this camp, the Manzanar Relocation Center in California, have been impounded for the duration. Photo taken on April 2, 1942. NARA

The Santa Anita Park race track is converted into an internment camp for evacuated Japanese Americans who will occupy the barracks erected in background in Arcadia, California. Photo taken on April 3, 1942. AP Photo

Salinas, California, 1942. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry identify their luggage at this Assembly center, prior to their transfer to a War Relocation Authority center. NARA

Japanese Americans removed from their Los Angeles homes line up at Manzanar Relocation Center, in California, on March 23, 1942, for their first meal after arrival at the camp. Rice, Beans, Prunes, and bread were included in the menu. AP Photo

In the Manzanar Relocation Center, in 1943, pictures and mementos sit on top of a radio in the Yonemitsu home. Ansel Adams/LOC

Women pose outside the barber shop in the Tule Lake Relocation Center, in Newell, California. Photo taken in 1942 or 1943. LOC

A wide view of the Tule Lake Relocation Center, in Newell, California. Photo taken in 1942 or 1943. LOC

Japanese American farm workers at the Tule Lake Relocation Center, in Newell, California. Photo taken in 1942 or 1943. LOC

Portraits of evacuees housed in the Manzanar Relocation Center in California, taken by Ansel Adams in 1943. Clockwise, from top left: Mrs. Kay Kageyama, Toyo Miyatake (Photographer), Miss Tetsuko Murakami, Mori Nakashima, Joyce Yuki Nakamura (eldest daughter), Corporal Jimmy Shohara, Aiko Hamaguchi (Nurse), Yoshio Muramoto, (electrician). At its peak, more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were held in Manzanar. Ansel Adams/LOC

Four young evacuees from Sacramento, California, read comic books at the newsstand in the Tule Lake Relocation Center, in Newell, California, on July 1, 1942. NARA

Japanese American evacuees make camouflage nets for the War Department in the Manzanar Relocation Center, in California, on July 1, 1942. NARA

A dust storm hits Manzanar Relocation Center, in California, on July 3, 1942. Dorothea Lange/NARA

These 48 Japanese Americans from the Granada Relocation Center near Lamar, Colorado, reported for preinduction physical examinations at the Denver Induction Station, on February 22, 1944. AP Photo

A crew of evacuee farmers at work on a semi-automatic-feeding, rotary potato planter, on July 1, 1945, at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in Newell, California. NARA

Cameramen from a San Francisco newspaper photograph potato planting on May 26, 1943, at the Tule Lake Relocation Center. NARA

A street scene at the Manzanar Relocation Center, winter, 1943. Ansel Adams/LOC

Artist C.T. Hibino, at the Manzanar Relocation Center, in 1943. Ansel Adams/LOC

Calisthenics at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, in 1943. Ansel Adams/LOC

Japanese Americans removed from their Los Angeles homes attend a dance at the government's camp at Manzanar, California, on March 23, 1942. AP Photo

A referee in traditional dress watches over a Sumo wrestling match in front of Japanese-Americans interned at Santa Anita, California. LOC

Nursery school children play with a scale model of their barracks at the Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California, on September 11, 1942. NARA

A funeral is held for James Wakasa at the Topaz Relocation Center in, Utah, on April 19, 1943. A military policeman shot and killed James Wakasa near Topaz's barbed wire fence on April 11, 1943. Fellow evacuees protested the shooting and demanded the right to hold a public funeral on the spot where Wakasa was shot. The soldier who shot Wakasa was court-martialed, and later found "not guilty". NARA

After the orders to relocate and detain persons of Japanese ancestry were rescinded, evacuees began returning home, and camps began to close. Here, Shuichi Yamamoto, the last evacuee to leave the Granada Relocation Center, in Amache, Colorado, says "Goodbye" to Project Director James G. Lindley, as the War Relocation Authority camp is officially closed October 15, 1945. Mr. Yamamoto, 65 years of age, was returning to his former home in Marysville, California. NARA

Roaring into Sacramento on Monday morning, July 30, 1945, a special train of seven cars brought some 450 Japanese American residents of California back to their homes after staying over three years at the Rohwer Center of the War Relocation Authority, in McGehee, Arkansas. Hikaru Iwasaki/LOC

A crowd of Japanese Americans stand behind a barbed wire fence waving to departing friends on train leaving Santa Anita, California. LOC

A Japanese family returning home from a relocation center camp in Hunt, Idaho, found their home and garage vandalized with anti-Japanese graffiti and broken windows in Seattle, Washington, on May 10, 1945. AP Photo

Evacuees from Arizona's Poston War Relocation Center stand in line before the departure station where they received ration books and bus tickets home in September of 1945. NARA

(via The Atlantic)