This historic photograph taken in Wyoming, shows the outline of a small child, named Gerald, watching the sunset. He's gazing over the Heart Mountain incarceration camp, while the sun is going down behind the clouds. Gerald is one of many small children that were incarcerated with their parents and families during WWII. The back says "Gerald admiring the sunset in Wyoming". His small silhouette contrasts to the vast expanse of the Wyoming sky and the Heart Mountain prison camp.
Contact sheet of negatives by George Wakiji documenting the United States Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) Hearings in Washington, D.C. Name stamp of George Wakiji on back; an address label (George M. Wakiji/5820 Iron Willow Court/ Alexandra, VA 22310) affixed to back covering another, perhaps previous address. Photo label of those depicted affixed on rever.
The CWRIC was a bipartisan commission formed by President Jimmy Carter to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066) and the incarceration of American citizens, as well as the mistreatment of the Alaskan natives of the Pribilof and Aleutian Islands.
The following contact sheet documents the hearing held on July, 16 1981. It features members of commission and captures the testimonies from Jack Greenberg of the NAACP Legal & Education Fund, Ed Nakawatase of the American Friends Service Committee, and influential Japanese American civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama. Kochiyama, whose family was incarcerated at Santa Anita and Jerome, worked during the civil rights movement in forging an alliance between Asian American and African American communities. She is most known for being with Malcom X on the night of his assassination.
The people depicted in the highlighted cells are as follows:
Contact sheet of negatives by George Wakiji documenting the United States Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) Hearings in Washington, D.C. Name stamp of George Wakiji on back; an address label (George M. Wakiji/5820 Iron Willow Court/ Alexandra, VA 22310) affixed to back covering another, perhaps previous address. Photo label of those depicted affixed on reverse.
The CWRIC was a bipartisan commission formed by President Jimmy Carter to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066) and the incarceration of American citizens, as well as the mistreatment of the Alaskan natives of the Pribilof and Aleutian Islands. The following contact sheet documents the hearing held on July 16, 1981. It features members of commission and captures the testimonies from Ed Nakawatase of the American Friends Service Committee, Jack Greenberg of the NAACP Legal and Education Fund, and conservative activist Lilian Baker, a proponent of Japanese American incarceration.
The people in the highlighted cells are as follows:
Hideo Kaneshiro was a Japanese American citizen of the United States who was imprisoned in Hawai'i and Mainland Japanese American prison camps during World War II.
Kaneshiro was sent to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah on March 14, 1923 and was then transferred to the Tule Lake Relocation Center in September of 1943 after he answered “no” to questions 27 and 28 in the loyalty questionnaire. Tule Lake segregated prisoners based on who was considered disloyal or disruptive, and Kaneshiro was considered to be disloyal. The Tule Lake records listed Kaneshiro as a renunciant of US citizenship by the United States Army.
Question 27 on the loyalty questionnaire asked if Nisei men were willing to serve on combat duty wherever ordered, and question 28 asked if individuals would swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and forswear any form of allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. These questions caused unrest because citizens resented being asked to renounce loyalty from the Emperor of Japan, especially when they had never sworn loyalty to the Emperor. Not only that, Japanese immigrants were barred from becoming U.S. Citizens on the basis of racial exclusion, so renunciation of their Japanese citizenship was problematic. Not only that, young men worried that answer “yes” to Question 27 would mean they had volunteered to join the Army. Individuals who said “no” to both questions were considered disloyal to the United States and were labeled as such; most of these people were segregated from the “loyal” and sent to the Tule Lake camp.
Kaneshiro was one of the four thousand plaintiffs in the suit Abo v. Clark in 1946, a lawsuit that overturned the forced renunciation of American citizenship by the plaintiffs. Kaneshiro’s renunciation of his American citizenship was declared null and void, and his American citizenship was fully restored.
This is the Citizen’s Indefinite Leave Pass awarded to Roy Nakano by the War Relocation Authority. Awarded May 4, 1943, it allowed Nakano to leave the camp indefinitely, with his first destination being Bremen, Indiana from Tule Lake Concentration Camp, California. Printed on anti-forgery paper, it shows a black and white photo of Nakano in a white shirt holding a board with his name on it. On the reverse side is a fingerprint of Nakano’s right index finger and a section for listing pass restrictions. Roy had to carry this at all times, but it allowed him to travel semi-freely instead of being confined in a prison camp.
This is a letter written by Margaret Hayashi to her son Harold's teacher, Mr. Hayes. The letter requests Harold's records because of their imminent move to Tanforan Assembly Center in the spring of 1942. They were later moved to the Topaz Relocation Center.
Following the events of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 1, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which declared the west coast a military zone and that persons who posed a threat to national security could be excluded from this zone. These people were those of Japanese ancestry; they were forcibly relocated to the Assembly Centers and then prison camps for the duration of World War II.
Harold Hayashi was in seventh grade at the time he was forced to move with his family to Tanforan Assembly Center. Margaret Hayashi notified Mr. Hayes that her family had received the evacuation order and that Harold would leave school that day to help her pack until they had to leave several days later. Margaret Hayashi also requested Harold's academic records so that Harold could attend school at the prison camp.
Contact sheet of negatives by George Wakiji documenting the United States Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) Hearings in Washington, D.C. Name stamp of George Wakiji on back; an address label (George M. Wakiji/5820 Iron Willow Court/ Alexandra, VA 22310) affixed to back covering another, perhaps previous address. Photo label of those depicted affixed on reverse.
The CWRIC was a bipartisan commission formed by President Jimmy Carter to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066) and the incarceration of American citizens, as well as the mistreatment of the Alaskan natives of the Pribilof and Aleutian Islands. The following contact sheet documents the hearing held on July 16, 1981. It features members of commission and captures the testimonies from Japanese American activists William Hohri and Dean Ito Taylor. William Hohri served as the lead plaintiff on the National Council for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR) class action lawsuit. He was also an important figure in the redress movement.
The people in the highlighted cells are as follows: