Incarceration & Concentration Camps

After the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 giving the War Department authority to create zones from which Japanese Americans were excluded. The first exclusion area designated was Bainbridge Island. On March 30, 1942 the Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island were gathered at Eagledale Ferry Dock and sent to an incarceration camp in Manzanar, CA before being tranferred to Minidoka in Idaho.

Hawaii Shingon Mission (also known as Shingon Shu Hawaii) is a historic Buddhist temple in Honolulu, Hawaii. It features distinctive Japanese architectural elements, including a steep roof with elaborate decorative carvings. During World War II, prejudice against Hawaiians of Japanese descent—especially Buddhists—turned many temples and shrines into targets.

Straddling the Nevada-Utah state line, the Great Basin National Heritage Area lies in the vast, open, quiet expanse of the continent’s basin and range physiographic province characterized by long, high-elevation desert valleys separated by steep, narrow mountain ranges.

Established between 1942 and 1945 when the area was Granada War Relocation Center, the cemetery includes 11 grave plots, ten with markers and one without. According to WRA records, 106 deaths occurred at Amache, although many remains were voluntarily removed after Amache’s closure in 1945. 

Little Tokyo Historic District is a historic Japanese commercial district in downtown Los Angeles, California. Japanese immigrants settled the district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before World War II, Little Tokyo was the largest Japanese community in the United States.

Tule Lake National Monument Visitor Center

Learn about the Manzanar Auditorium that now acts as the Manzanar National Historic Site Visitor Center.

In each block, two latrines—one for women and one for men—served about 300 people. Women’s latrines had ten toilets, men’s had eight and a urinal. Francis Kikuchi recalled, “The pots were sitting right next to each other . . . if you're going, you're sitting there rubbing elbows."

Learn about Block 34 Mess Hall Garden

Each of the 36 blocks had recreation halls—a barracks on the southwest corner of the block that was not used for living space. Recreation halls served as libraries, churches, classrooms, and places to learn arts and music or hold club meetings; one hall even served as Manzanar’s museum.