Returning home

When the camps closed, Japanese Americans were handed $25 and put on trains headed for the places they had been forcibly removed from nearly four years earlier. Harassment was common -- many returning Japanese Americans were greeted with signs reading "No Japs Allowed." Other discovered their property had been vandalized or stolen. Homes and businesses that had been boarded up or left in the care of others were abandoned and stripped of furnishings and goods. For the majority, who did not have homes to return to, housing was the most serious problem. Housing discrimination was severe in many areas and persisted to varying degrees until the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Former camp inmates with no other options moved into hostels and converted community institutions with conditions not much better than the camps they had just left. Although this period was stressful, it is remembered as a time when people came together to share what they had.

World War II (219)
Leaving camp (273)
Returning home (1034)

Related articles from the Densho Encyclopedia :
Alien land laws, Hood River incident, Kazuo Masuda, Return to West Coast

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1034 items
Third Annual Oregon Nisei Bowling League Tournament Dance- Trophies (ddr-one-1-114)
av Third Annual Oregon Nisei Bowling League Tournament Dance- Trophies (ddr-one-1-114)
Black and white photographic negative of Bruce Fukuda holding two trophies at the Third Annual Oregon Nisei Bowling League Tournament Dance at McElroy's Ballroom in Portland, Oregon.
Interview with George Hamamoto, (audio) (ddr-csujad-56-1)
av Interview with George Hamamoto, (audio) (ddr-csujad-56-1)
Sonoma County resident George Hamamoto was interviewed on June 20, 1978, by a Sonoma State University student for the North Bay Ethnic Archive Project. He discusses growing up in Sebastopol, the family grocery store, removal to Assembly Center in Merced, then incarceration at Granada (Amache) camp. Discusses organization and administration of camp, and return to Napa …
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