Japanese American Internment: Overview

This digital collection of Japanese relocation camp newspapers record the concerns and the day-to-day life of the interned Japanese-Americans. Although articles in these files frequently appear in Japanese, most of the papers are in English or in dual text. Many of the 25 titles constituting this collection are complete or substantially complete. Editions have been carefully collated and omissions are noted. A sampling of titles include: Rohwer Outpost, Poston Chronicle, Gila News Courier, Tulean Dispatch, Granada Pioneer, Minndoka Irrigator, Topaz Times, Manzanar Free Press, Denson Tribune, and Heart Mountain Sentinel.

The national newspaper of the JACL

U.S. legislative publications and government information. Includes pending bills, laws, legislative histories, committee reports and documents, Congressional hearings and select committee prints.
Try searches for:

• "Japanese Americans"
  
• war relocation authority
  
• commission on wartime relocation and internment of civilians

Select primary government documetns

The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was a government agency tasked with rounding up Japanese Americans, incarcerating them into camps, determining their loyalty or disloyalty to the United States, and resettling them into U.S. society. The records are expansive, providing an excellent portrait of incarceration camp management, and the mindset of Japanese American incarcerees in the camps. In addition, the collection includes significant material on public relations and military recruitment.

The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives (JARDA) contains thousands of primary sources documenting Japanese American internment, including:
Personal diaries, letters, photographs, and drawings;
US War Relocation Authority materials, including camp newsletters, final reports, photographs, and other documents relating to the day-to-day administration of the camps;
And personal histories documenting the lives of the people who lived in the camps, as well as of the administrators who created and worked there.

Densho’s extensive digital collections chronicle the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans.