The U.S. landscape is layered with stories of settlement and forced removal. The dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II are among shared legacies of white supremacy and settler colonialism. In each case, and across some of the same sites, their dislocations were enacted by the federal government, through agencies including the U.S. Army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
This map visualizes convergences of Native American, Japanese American and environmental histories by cataloging a selection of confinement sites. By no means comprehensive, it suggests the patterns of dislocation and a landscape where every site tells a story of stolen Indigenous lands.
If you have a story of overlapping dislocation to share, please email manzanardiverted@gmail.com.
Facilities and types of Japanese American confinement sites
War Relocation Authority (WRA) Concentration Camps
These "relocation centers" (the name used by the WRA) confined Nikkei (those of Japanese ancestry, citizens and non-citizens) Americans, two-thirds of whom were American-born citizens.
Assembly Centers
Initial temporary detention sites used to assemble Nikkei for transit to more long-term incarceration facilities, predominantly outside of the "exclusion zone." They were relatively near JA communities and were prepared by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) and included racetracks and fairgrounds.
Department of Justice (DOJ) or U.S. Army Internment Camps
Internment sites that primarily detained male Issei, or alien residents of Japanese descent, who were excluded from seeking citizenship through naturalization because of federal exclusion bans (these were in place until 1952).They were run by the Immigration and Naturalization Services, part of the DOJ. Nisei, who were forced to renounce their U.S. citizenship, were also detained in these sites.
WRA Isolation Centers and Temporary Camps
Department of War (DOW) sites. Primarily U.S. Army centers where predominantly male Issei or alien residents of the U.S. of Japanese descent were detained and/or confined en route to long-term interment or incarceration sites.
U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) or other training facility
Other suggested terms include detention center, confinement site, incarceration center.
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