Japanese American Incarceration
Individual Oral Histories
| Oral History with Frank Chuman | California State University, Fullerton / Calisphere | n.d.
Frank Chuman recalls his life before the war, forced removal, imprisonment at Manzanar, legal work, military service, and later involvement in Japanese American civil-rights causes.
| Oral History with Karl Yoneda | California State University, Fullerton / Calisphere | n.d.
Labor activist Karl Yoneda discusses discrimination, working-class organizing, wartime incarceration, military service, and political activism within the Japanese American community.
| Satsuki Ina Interview | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Satsuki Ina describes uncovering her family’s incarceration history, growing up in San Francisco’s Japantown, intergenerational trauma, healing, and activism against modern detention.
| Saburo Masada Interview | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Saburo Masada discusses his family history, Manzanar, Japanese American religious life, community leadership, and efforts to preserve the memories of former incarcerees.
| Stan Shikuma Interview | Seattle JACL Oral History Collection / Densho | n.d.
A Sansei activist reflects on family history, Japanese American identity, community organizing, pilgrimage, redress, and the transmission of incarceration memories between generations.
| Ron Wakabayashi Interview | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Ron Wakabayashi recounts growing up in Chicago after his family’s wartime displacement and describes his later leadership in Japanese American civil-rights and redress campaigns.
This personal diary records one individual’s removal and confinement at Manzanar, Gila River, and Tule Lake, including travel, living conditions, work, and ordinary camp routines.
Children and Young People
More than 300 letters and cards written by Japanese American children and young adults provide a child’s-eye account of confinement, school, shortages, loneliness, and daily life.
| Clara Breed Collection Finding Aid | Online Archive of California | May 10, 2024
A detailed guide to letters sent primarily from Poston by young people describing their removal from San Diego, adjustment to camp, educational experiences, and eventual resettlement.
| Letters from the Japanese American Incarceration | Smithsonian Education | n.d.
Four letters written to librarian Clara Breed reveal the differing reactions of young Japanese Americans to removal, imprisonment, school, and separation from their former community.
| Clara Breed and the Children of Japanese American Incarceration | City of San Diego | n.d.
Explores the relationship between a San Diego librarian and the children who wrote to her from camp, preserving unusually direct descriptions of incarceration by young people.
Family and Community Collections
| JACL Philadelphia Oral History Collection | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Interviews with Nisei and Sansei residents examine wartime displacement, postwar migration, prejudice, employment, family life, and the creation of a Japanese American community in Philadelphia.
| Loni Ding Oral History and Film Research Collection | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Seventy-seven raw interviews document Japanese American soldiers, their incarcerated families, military segregation, conflicting loyalties, and the campaign for recognition of wartime service.
| South Bay JACL Oral Histories Collection | Japanese Cultural Institute | n.d.
Twenty-three oral histories preserve the experiences of Japanese Americans from California’s South Bay, including incarceration, military service, resettlement, community building, and family memory.
| JASC Oral Histories and Resettled Roots | Japanese American Service Committee | September 19, 2023
More than 80 searchable interviews tell how former incarcerees and their descendants rebuilt their families, livelihoods, and institutions in Chicago after the camps closed.
| CSU Japanese American Digitization Project | California State University / Calisphere | n.d.
A consortium archive brings together thousands of oral histories, family photographs, letters, diaries, newsletters, artwork, legal files, and personal objects related to forced removal and incarceration.
Approximately 7,000 items document Japanese American life in Florin and Sacramento, including family letters, diaries, camp artifacts, handmade objects, newsletters, photographs, and yearbooks.
| Yasumura Family Collection | CSU Japanese American Digitization Project / Calisphere | n.d.
A family-centered collection contributes photographs, records, and oral-history material to the reconstruction of Japanese American community life across generations.
Lesser-Known Perspectives
| Temporary Assembly Centers | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Oral histories and documents describe confinement at converted fairgrounds and racetracks before families were transferred to more permanent camps.
| Support from the Non-Japanese American Community | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Interviews and records document ministers, teachers, librarians, Quakers, attorneys, neighbors, and other people who assisted Japanese American families or challenged their removal.
| More Interviews | Densho | July 5, 2008
Personal accounts include separated families, Department of Justice detention, travel to Ellis Island, prisoner exchanges, and other experiences outside the better-known War Relocation Authority camps.
| The Suitcase Project: What Would You Bring? | Densho | May 16, 2018
A descendant reflects on her grandmother Hatsumi Higa’s experience after the FBI arrested the family patriarch and the remaining family members were forced to pack without knowing their destination.
| An Open Letter to Detention Profiteer Jennifer Nakamoto | Densho | September 26, 2019
Descendants of incarcerated Japanese Americans use their family histories to challenge contemporary detention and the participation of private companies in confinement systems.
Resistance, Dissent, and Redress
| Resistance and Protest | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Primary sources and testimony present the perspectives of draft resisters, legal challengers, dissidents, renunciants, and other incarcerated people who opposed government policies.
| Loyalty Questionnaire | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Interviews explain how incarcerees confronted confusing questions about military service and allegiance that divided families and contributed to segregation at Tule Lake.
| Draft Resistance | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Former resisters and community members describe why some young men refused military induction while their families remained imprisoned without due process.
| Legal Challenges to Incarceration | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Testimony and documents illuminate the experiences of people who challenged exclusion, curfews, detention, and the denial of constitutional rights in court.
| Redress and Reparations | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Former incarcerees and activists recount breaking their silence, testifying publicly, organizing across communities, and campaigning for an official apology and reparations.
| Japanese American Testimony at the Redress Hearings | Densho | August 10, 2020
Survivor testimony demonstrates how deeply personal accounts of lost homes, family separation, humiliation, and psychological injury became evidence in the movement for redress.
Memory and Intergenerational Storytelling
| Camp Pilgrimages | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Oral histories, photographs, and documents show survivors and descendants returning to incarceration sites for remembrance, education, religious observances, and community healing.
| A Week of Action and Remembrance | Densho | February 3, 2021
Encourages descendants to research their family records, identify relatives in incarceration databases, preserve household materials, and discuss histories that were often suppressed after the war.
| Jerome-Rohwer Pilgrimage: Photo Essay and Reflections | Densho | August 12, 2026
Jennifer Noji reflects on visiting the Arkansas incarceration sites and considers how pilgrimage connects descendants with family history, physical landscapes, and community memory.
Japanese American Women’s Experiences
| Japanese American Women’s History | Densho | n.d.
A collection of articles and testimony highlights women’s labor, family responsibilities, political activism, artistic production, resistance, and survival during and after incarceration.
Describes oral-history projects created to preserve underrepresented accounts from women, dissidents, Kibei, Department of Justice detainees, camp employees, and non-Japanese American witnesses.
Resettlement and Rebuilding Life
| Leaving Camp and Resettlement | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Former incarcerees describe leaving the camps with limited money, searching for housing and employment, confronting continued racism, and rebuilding disrupted lives.
| Return to the West Coast | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Personal testimony records the uncertainty faced by families who returned to find homes, farms, businesses, possessions, and community networks damaged or lost.
| Postwar Community Life | Densho Digital Repository | n.d.
Interviews examine how displaced Japanese Americans rebuilt churches, businesses, civic groups, neighborhoods, and cultural institutions after incarceration.
Major Oral-History Collections
| Densho Digital Repository: Oral-History Interviews | Densho | n.d.
Nearly 1,000 recorded interviews preserve the memories of former incarcerees, their relatives, activists, and others connected to Japanese American incarceration.
| Densho Archives | Densho | n.d.
A searchable collection of oral histories, family photographs, documents, newspapers, and personal records contributed by Japanese American families and community organizations.
| Stories from Manzanar | National Park Service | February 23, 2026
Personal accounts describe forced removal, daily life behind barbed wire, relationships with nearby communities, and the difficulties families encountered after leaving camp.
| Oral Histories: American Concentration Camps | Masumi Hayashi Foundation | n.d.
Audio excerpts feature former incarcerees remembering removal, confinement, divided loyalties, resistance, and the lasting effects of incarceration on their families.
| World War II-era Japanese American Incarceration | UC Berkeley Oral History Center | March 7, 2024
Interviews document property loss, disrupted education, identity, forced relocation, incarceration, resettlement, and the emotional consequences of the experience.
| Japanese Internment Experience Collections | Mountain West Digital Library | May 4, 2018
A gateway to interviews and personal materials from former residents of Topaz, Heart Mountain, and other incarceration sites, including 33 Topaz oral-history records.
| Japanese American Incarceration: Oral History and Primary Sources | Library of Congress | n.d.
Introduces incarceration through Norman Ikari’s testimony and supporting photographs, documents, and government records.
| Robert Hiroshi Kono Collection | Library of Congress Veterans History Project | 2003
Robert Kono recalls being forcibly removed and confined as a young Japanese American before serving in the United States military.
Diaries, Letters, and Personal Artwork
Sixteen-year-old Stanley Hayami’s diary entries, letters, and sketches reveal his school life, ambitions, family relationships, and thoughts while imprisoned at Heart Mountain.
| A Life in Pieces: Videos | Japanese American National Museum | 2021
A series of videos brings Stanley Hayami’s words and artwork to life, presenting incarceration through the perspective of a Japanese American teenager.
| Stanley Hayami Diary Excerpts | Mission US | n.d.
Selected diary entries provide a direct window into the routines, anxieties, friendships, and aspirations of a teenager incarcerated at Heart Mountain.
| Featured Collections | Japanese American National Museum | n.d.
Includes Estelle Ishigo’s drawings of life at Pomona and Heart Mountain, George Hoshida’s wartime artwork, and other materials created by people directly affected by incarceration.
| Japanese American National Museum Collections | Japanese American National Museum | n.d.
Features diaries, letters, clothing, artwork, photographs, and other objects through which incarcerated people documented their own lives and communities.
| Japanese American National Museum Digital Collections | Calisphere | n.d.
Digitized collections include hundreds of letters written by Japanese American students, as well as photographs, drawings, diaries, and family papers.
| Japanese Relocation and Internment Resources | National Archives | n.d.
Directs researchers to digital collections containing personal diaries, letters, photographs, drawings, camp newsletters, and administrative records.
Community Voices and Camp Publications
| Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers, 1942–1946 | Library of Congress | 1942–1946
Newspapers written and edited inside the camps record births, deaths, sports, schools, employment, politics, social activities, and the everyday concerns of incarcerated communities.
Presents newsletters, pamphlets, publications, photographs, and other materials produced by or circulated among people living in the camps.
Provides access to camp letters, oral histories, independent publications, photographs, legal correspondence, family papers, and materials documenting resistance and resettlement.
Memory, Redress, and Later Generations
| Commemorating Redress in the Archives | Densho | August 10, 2020
Draws upon survivor testimony and community records to recount how former incarcerees broke decades of silence and organized for acknowledgment and reparations.
| How We Remember | Densho | February 25, 2019
Brett Ryoji Kodama traces his family’s incarceration history and considers how photographs, family memories, and inherited trauma shape later generations.
Introduces interviews with 23 descendants of people imprisoned at Manzanar and Topaz, exploring inherited trauma, identity, healing, creativity, and family silence.
| Survivor Voices and the Japanese American Redress Movement | Densho | August 10, 2020
Testimony from former incarcerees shows how personal memories became evidence in the grassroots campaign that led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
A descendant’s account connects her family’s Heart Mountain incarceration with the prior dispossession of Indigenous peoples from lands used for confinement sites.
Individual and Family Stories
| Tom Ikeda: Why Densho Matters to Me | Densho | August 16, 2016
Densho’s founding executive director explains why he began recording the testimony of Japanese Americans who had lived through wartime incarceration.
| The Little Exile | Densho | May 16, 2017
Introduces the autobiographical story of a young girl whose family was confined first at the Stockton Assembly Center and later at Rohwer.
| The U.S. Put Norman Mineta in an Incarceration Camp—Then He Went to Congress | Time | May 20, 2019
Norman Mineta’s life story connects his childhood imprisonment at Heart Mountain with his later career in civil rights, Congress, and the presidential cabinet.
Survivors and descendants describe honoring relatives in the Ireichō, a memorial book containing more than 125,000 names of people subjected to wartime incarceration.
