How Japanese Americans were forced from their homes in the 1940s
Forced to sell property before being “evacuated” into prison camps, many Japanese Americans were left with nothing.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Japanese American prison camp Heart Mountain was the size of a small city.
Transcript
So, the general put out orders on how to get ready for the move. And these orders included announcements that were posted on walls in front of our homes and lamp posts.
And it gave specific instructions on how to get ready. The signs were posted. We had one week, one week to get ready for the move.
In that time we had to sell or store anything that we had. A lot of people had to sell their homes. They had to sell farms, and they had to store all their furnishings.
And we were told to get rid of our property and to only carry one handbag per person. That's all we could take with us.
And then we were told to report to a certain location within the community to ride the buses in order to go to the prison camps.
They confiscated things that are important to us like cameras and knives, kitchen knives, and other things that could be of use to spies and saboteurs.
And then we had to do other things in order to get ready.
Our bank accounts were frozen. They never told us where we were going as we got ready to go. And so, we weren't sure what to wear. We were wearing California type clothing.
Here's that picture of a typical family, the Mochida family in Northern California, and notice the kids are wearing dog tags.
I remember my tag, it had my name, it had my destination, what camp I'm assigned to.
And so we're wearing these dog tags to make sure that we don't get lost in the shuffle moving 120,000 people, including children into the 10 prison camps.
So we all got on the trains that finally took us to our destination. Here's a, a photo of a train with armed guards, military wearing rifles, shoulder to shoulder surrounding the entire train.
And I remember being on that train for, for three days and nights, sitting on a hard bench, eating cold sandwiches until we got to our destination in a place in Northern Wyoming, a place called Heart Mountain.
We had no idea where we were gonna go to such a place.
And it gave specific instructions on how to get ready. The signs were posted. We had one week, one week to get ready for the move.
In that time we had to sell or store anything that we had. A lot of people had to sell their homes. They had to sell farms, and they had to store all their furnishings.
And we were told to get rid of our property and to only carry one handbag per person. That's all we could take with us.
And then we were told to report to a certain location within the community to ride the buses in order to go to the prison camps.
They confiscated things that are important to us like cameras and knives, kitchen knives, and other things that could be of use to spies and saboteurs.
And then we had to do other things in order to get ready.
Our bank accounts were frozen. They never told us where we were going as we got ready to go. And so, we weren't sure what to wear. We were wearing California type clothing.
Here's that picture of a typical family, the Mochida family in Northern California, and notice the kids are wearing dog tags.
I remember my tag, it had my name, it had my destination, what camp I'm assigned to.
And so we're wearing these dog tags to make sure that we don't get lost in the shuffle moving 120,000 people, including children into the 10 prison camps.
So we all got on the trains that finally took us to our destination. Here's a, a photo of a train with armed guards, military wearing rifles, shoulder to shoulder surrounding the entire train.
And I remember being on that train for, for three days and nights, sitting on a hard bench, eating cold sandwiches until we got to our destination in a place in Northern Wyoming, a place called Heart Mountain.
We had no idea where we were gonna go to such a place.