Heart Mountain
Residents of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, in northwestern Wyoming, first arrived on August 12, 1942. As they disembarked the train, weary men, women, and children trudged the quarter-mile walk…
Granada
The Granada “Amache” Relocation Center, in the isolated Colorado prairie, required three days travel by train for most evacuees to arrive. Director James G. Lindley, a devout Christian man, was…
Minidoka
The Minidoka Relocation Center was located on sagebrush land in south-central Idaho where the temperature ranged between 30 degrees below zero to 104 above. Min Yasui recalled his arrival: “We…
Topaz
The Topaz Relocation Center, located near Delta, Utah, was called “The Jewel of the Desert,” yet historian Leonard Arrington admitted it was not a very attractive place. Its inhospitable alkali-laden…
Tule Lake
The Tule Lake Relocation Center in the Klamath Falls Basin of Northern California was not much of an improvement over the temporary assembly centers. The dust storms were so bad…
Manzanar
The Manzanar Relocation Center was the first to receive occupants, yet it was not welcoming by any measure. As Yuri Tateishi wrote, You felt like a prisoner. . . .…
Blossoms in the Desert
In the previous post, we considered the natural human response of Nikkei internees unjustly incarcerated. Christians, on the other hand, found solace in their faith and some even expressed how…
Into the Wilderness
By the fall of 1942, Japanese American internees were transported by train from the various assembly centers to ten different relocation centers in the country’s interior. Most of these multi-day…
Relocation: Blossoms in the Wilderness
Preparing for Relocation Ministry in the assembly centers was often challenging due to squalid conditions and the uncertain future. The Christian church, however, established a sense of normalcy for evacuees…
Santa Anita & Mayer Assembly Centers
Santa Anita in Arcadia, California, was the most-populated assembly center, holding 18,937 people by official figures. The first evacuees began arriving on April 3, Good Friday, and continued coming throughout…