Japanese American Resettlement

During World War II, roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast of the United States were taken from their homes and put into concentration camps because of wartime hysteria and fear. The military commander of the West Coast felt they were a threat, and politicians went along with his assessment. They were sent inland to concentration camps with barbed wire and armed guards in isolated locations like Topaz, Utah; Manzanar, California; and Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Topaz Internment Camp

Beginning on Sept. 11, 1942, Japanese Americans living in San Francisco and the Bay area, including Chiura Obata and his family, were pulled from their homes and sent to the internment camp in Topaz, Utah that was ringed by barbed wire fences and guard towers.

The flimsy, uninsulated barracks consisted of wood frames covered with tarpaper. Everything was built so hurriedly that not all of the stoves for heat had been installed. Temperatures in the winter went below zero and in summer above 100 degrees. Inmates were expected to learn how to grow food in the arid desert in order to eat. As the green wood dried, gaps formed between boards and dust constantly drifted in.

Heart Mountain Internment Camp

I stood by the remaining guard tower that watches over the dry, windy landscape in Wyoming. This was the site of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp during World War II. Ten thousand Americans lived here in 650 barracks. Little remains of the camp now, one of ten such camps where fear triumphed over humanity. In the distance was Heart Mountain, named by the Crow people because it reminded them of the noble heart of a bison.