Confinement and Ethnicity documents in unprecedented detail the various facilities in which persons of Japanese descent living in the western United States were confined during World War II: the fifteen “assembly centers” run by the U.S. Army’s Wartime Civil Control Administration, the ten “relocation centers” created by the War Relocation Authority, and the internment camps, penitentiaries, and other sites under the jurisdiction of the Justice and War Departments. Originally published as a report of the Western Archeological and Conservation Center of the National Park Service, it is now reissued in a corrected edition, with a new Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima, associate professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington. Based on archival research, field visits, and interviews with former residents, Confinement and Ethnicity provides an overview of the architectural remnants, archeological features, and artifacts remaining at the various sites. Included are numerous maps, diagrams, charts, and photographs. Historic images of the sites and their inhabitants -- including several by Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams -- are combined with photographs of present-day settings, showing concrete foundations, fence posts, inmate-constructed drainage ditches, and foundations and parts of buildings, as well as inscriptions in Japanese and English written or scratched on walls and rocks. The result is a unique and poignant treasure house of information for former residents and their descendants, for Asian American and World War II historians, and for anyone interested in the facts about what the authors call these “sites of shame.”

Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government wrongfully imprisoned thousands of Japanese American citizens and profited from their labor. Japanese American Incarceration recasts the forced removal and incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II as a history of prison labor and exploitation. Following Franklin Roosevelt's 1942 Executive Order 9066, which called for the exclusion of potentially dangerous groups from military zones along the West Coast, the federal government placed Japanese Americans in makeshift prisons throughout the country. In addition to working on day-to-day operations of the camps, Japanese Americans were coerced into harvesting crops, digging irrigation ditches, paving roads, and building barracks for little to no compensation and often at the behest of privately run businesses—all in the name of national security. How did the U.S. government use incarceration to address labor demands during World War II, and how did imprisoned Japanese Americans respond to the stripping of not only their civil rights, but their labor rights as well? Using a variety of archives and collected oral histories, Japanese American Incarceration uncovers the startling answers to these questions. Stephanie Hinnershitz's timely study connects the government's exploitation of imprisoned Japanese Americans to the history of prison labor in the United States.

This historic resource study/special history study has been prepared to satisfy in part the research needs as stated in the task directive concerning Manzanar National Historic Site, Historic Resource Study/Special History Study. The purpose of this study is the collection, presentation, and evaluation of historical research pertaining to the historic events that have occurred within the boundaries of the National Historic Site and its surrounding area. It is intended that the study will provide a data base for the National Historic Site's historic resources that will enable park administrators to formulate appropriate management policies to preserve, protect, and interpret those resources. The wartime evacuation and relocation of 117,000 persons of Japanese ancestry at relocation centers such as Manzanar is a dramatic and significant event in American history. Manzanar is symbolic of this tragic episode and is a reminder that a nation of laws needs constantly to honor its commitment to the concept of individual liberty and the rights of its citizens.

This historic resource study/special history study has been prepared to satisfy in part the research needs as stated in the task directive concerning Manzanar National Historic Site, Historic Resource Study/Special History Study. The purpose of this study is the collection, presentation, and evaluation of historical research pertaining to the historic events that have occurred within the boundaries of the National Historic Site and its surrounding area. It is intended that the study will provide a data base for the National Historic Site's historic resources that will enable park administrators to formulate appropriate management policies to preserve, protect, and interpret those resources. The wartime evacuation and relocation of 117,000 persons of Japanese ancestry at relocation centers such as Manzanar is a dramatic and significant event in American history. Manzanar is symbolic of this tragic episode and is a reminder that a nation of laws needs constantly to honor its commitment to the concept of individual liberty and the rights of its citizens.