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…
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…
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. . . .…
Tulare & Pomona Assembly Centers
Tulare Between May 12-14, 1942, non-Japanese Christians from Pasadena ministered to evacuees departing for the Tulare Assembly Center housed on the county fairgrounds: Friends, cooperating with other church workers, were…
Puyallup Assembly Center
Families from the Seattle area were mainly sent to the Puyallup Assembly Center on the grounds of the Western Washington State Fairgrounds.[1] According to Floyd Schmoe, In Seattle, the orders…
Voices of Protest
Nikkei Voices Rev. Daisuke Kitagawa spoke out against wartime injustices, asserting that his fellow Episcopal churchmen “opposed evacuation as a matter of principle, but nothing was done beyond that. .…
New Pilgrims
In April 1921, Rev. Kengo Tajima (1884-1961) was sent to continue the work of the Japanese Church of Christ in Salt Lake City begun by Rev. Hidenobu Toyotome. Tajima’s ministry…
A Stone Cried Out
Rev. Shigeo Shimada (1906-1984) was born in Japan and began to follow Christ through his sister’s influence. After his father disowned him for believing a “foreign” religion, Shimada immigrated to…
A Voice in the Wilderness
What might a Christian minister say to his congregation to prepare them for unjust suffering? What hope could he offer in the face of the uncertain future? Sermons and testimonies…