Yale University Library Research Guides: AMST 486 / ER&M 425: Asian American Studies of Race, Colonialism, and Empire: Beinecke Library

Materials used in class on October 8th: Japanese American internment

Ansel Adams. Born Free and Equal, Photographs of Loyal Japanese-Americans at Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California (1944)
In the summer of 1943, Adams was invited by his friend, newly appointed camp director Ralph Merritt, to photograph life at the camp. The project and the accompanying book and exhibition at the MoMA created a significant amount of controversy, partly owing to the subject matter. World War II was still being fought and the animosity against Americans of Japanese descent was high, especially on the West Coast.
Two Views of Manzanar: An Exhibition of Photographs
Based on an exhibit in 1978 at UCLA comparing the photos of Ansel Adams and Toyo Miyatake. Please note: this book is part of the Yale Library's general, rather than Beinecke, collections and can be checked out of the library.
Howard W. Elkinton. Report on alien internee camps, typescript, 1943
Typed report evaluating concentration camps for prisoners of war, refugees, and other detainees in Seagoville, Kenedy, and Crystal City, Texas in 1943. Howard W. Elkinton, an American Quaker, visited three concentration camps housing German, Japanese, German-American, Japanese-American, Peruvian, Panamanian, and Nicaraguan detainees and refugees. Elkinton describes the conditions of the three concentration camps, including housing, food, health care, religious practice, and entertainment. Elkinton interviewed detainees and staff at each camp. He describes the religious demographics of the camps and includes lists of detainees who needed special assistance and intervention.
Kogetsu Dale Morioka (1917-2000). Photograph album of activities in California and correspondence relating to Japanese American internment.
Box 1: Photograph album comprises pre-1941 materials and does not document Japanese American internment.
Box 2: Typescript transcriptions of letters. Folder 8-Letters from Molly Moriuchi (Tule Lake), 1943-1944. Folder 18-Letters from Kiyono (Heart Mountain), 1942-1943. Folder 20-Letter from Toyoko (Topaz), 1944. Folder 21-Letters from Vi (Topaz), 1943.
Minutes of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League (San Francisco), 1907 March.
In May 1905, a mass meeting was held in San Francisco, California to launch the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League.[1] Among those attending the first meeting were labor leaders and European immigrants, Patrick Henry McCarthy of the Building Trades Council of San Francisco, Andrew Furuseth, and Walter McCarthy of the International Seamen's Union. In December 1907 the organization was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League.
Noriko Sawada Bridges Flynn and Haruko Fujioka letters and photograph album, 1938-1948
Papers collected by Haruko Fujioka documenting her friendship with Noriko Sawada Bridges Flynn, 1938-1948. Box 1 contains circa 40 manuscript and typescript letters from Noriko Sawada Bridges Flynn to Haruko Fujioka, 1938-1948. Flynn describes life in California for Japanese Americans, including losing their jobs and being forced to sell their belongings and relocate to concentration camps. Flynn describes life in the Colorado River Relocation Camp in Arizona, 1942-1945, including housing, food, and recreation. Later letters describe her life after the war, including her work for the War Relocation Authority, the California housing crisis, and her activist work. Box 2 contains a photograph album compiled by Haruko Fujioka containing circa 80 photographs of Hawaii and portraits of her friends and pen pals, including Noriko Sawada Bridges Flynn, circa 1940-1942. Also included at the end of Box 1 is the box in which Haruko Fujioka kept Flynn's letters, with manuscript notes listing the birthdays of her pen pals, including Flynn's.
Robert W. McKnight. Report on the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the Northern California sector, 1942.
Binder of documents and photographic prints (1 box) compiled by United States Army officer Robert W. McKnight, Northern California Sector of the Western Defense Command, documenting the evacuation of persons with Japanese ancestry from Northern California, April-December 1942.
Sally Sakae Kusayanagi and Thomas Mosahur Okabe correspondence, 1943 January 16-1944 February 13
236 autograph letters, signed, documenting the experiences of Sally Sakae Kusayanagi at the Manzanar War Relocation Camp as well as the months following her release, 1943 January 16-1944 February 13. 149 letters sent from Kusayanagi at Manzanar to Thomas Mosahur Okabe in Denver, Colorado, 1943 January 16-1943 August 11, and then in Des Moines, Iowa, 1943 August 18-1944 February 11. 73 letters sent from Okabe to Kusayanagi while he was in Denver, 1943 August 16-1944 February 13. There are also 14 letters sent from family and friends at Manzanar to Kusayanagi, 1943 August 3-December 23.
United States, War Relocation Authority. Wartime exile: the exclusion of the Japanese Americans from the West… (US GPO, 1946), 167 pgs.
Report prepared by Ruth E. McKee, Historian. From Preface: “This study is an attempt to explain how American democracy, at a time when it was engaged in a death struggle against the forces of totalitarianism across the seas, came to deal in this manner with one of its own minorities, a minority composed of two-thirds citizens by birth and one-third aliens denied naturalization under the law of our country.” Review of history of Japanese in America and the events of 1941-1942 after Pearl Harbor. Part III. Triumph for the Racists: “At this time and for some time to come the voice of the racists was dominating public sentiment toward the Japanese Americans, and it was clamoring for arbitrary detention of the entire minority for the duration of the war and deportation of the entire group to Japan at the close of the war.” (p. 159).
United States Army, Western Defense Command records, 1942-1943.
Documents and reports issued by offices of the United States Army Western Defense Command, responsible for the relocation and internment of Japanese American civilians in California, Oregon, and Washington.
more...less...
Box 1: Public proclamations relating to the implementation of E.O. 9066. Various memoranda relating to the evacuation of Japanese (“both aliens and non-aliens”) in the area of the Western Defense Command – the bulk of this box constitutes these memoranda, dated consecutively as planning and implementation of E.O. 9066 progressed. Operations manual for “maintenance of assembly and reception centers.”
Box 2: Interior security manual - lots of references to communication with and treatment of “prisoners.” Booklet about “relocation communities for wartime evacuees.” Proposed curriculum procedures for Japanese relocation centers. Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) assembly center regulations. Memoranda re: Public Proclamation No. 10 “establishing a zone of restricted lighting.” Various memoranda re: WCCA assembly center management. Memoranda regarding War Dept. regulations for “soldiers of Japanese ancestry.” Various executive orders relating to the powers and purview of the War Relocation Authority. Memoranda regarding use of evacuee labor on War Relocation projects. Various War Dept. published regulations and proclamations. Bound compendium of variety of “Civilian exclusion orders” and “Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry living in …”
Yonekazu Satoda papers, photographs, and moving films
Collection (11 boxes) includes papers, photographs, and moving films that document the internment of Japanese American Yonekazu Satoda at the Jerome Relocation Center in Denison, Arkansas, 1942-1945, as well as his military service with the United States Army in Japan, 1946-1948. Additional material documents other aspects of his life, especially his education as an accountant, as well as correspondence with friends and businesses.
more...less...
Box 1, folder 1: Diary, 1942 May 12-1945 February 13

Materials used in class on October 8th: Other topics

Jin san ri xin lu/The Golden Hills' News
An 1854 issue of this newspaper in Chinese and English published in San Francisco.
Remarks of the Chinese merchants of San Francisco, upon Governor Bigler's message, and some common objections...
1855
Directory of Chinese Business Houses
Published by Wells, Fargo & Company, 1882
The Rebellion in Los Angeles
A pamphlet reprinting an article that appeared in the first (fall 1992) issue of a British journal called Aufheben.

AMST 486 / ER&M 425: Asian American Studies of Race, Colonialism, and Empire: Beinecke Library

Materials used in class on October 8th: Japanese American internment

Materials used in class on October 8th: Other topics

Site Navigation

Yale's Libraries