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Internment Archives is the best source on the web for hundreds of pages of raw primary historical documents related to the 1942 evacuation and the commission hearings of the 1980s. Much of this material has been subsequently ignored by the Japanese-American reparations movment and its supporters at the "Civil Liberties Public Education Fund".

Athena Press is publisher of MAGIC - The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during WW II. David Lowman was the National Security Agency Executive responsible for declassifying the Top Secret MAGIC intercepts that revealed ethnic Japanese sabatage on the West Coast prior to Pearl Harbor. His book is a response to the Commission on Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians and its findings. This book is the first read for any student of the history of the evacuation.

Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives provides a balanced photography of life in the relocation and assembly centers, spartan living conditions but hardly what Americans would define as a "concentration camp".

Japanese American history collection at California State University, Fullerton provides interviews of ethnic Japanese and Caucasians from the 1960s up to the 1980s. Close reading will reveal the more strident tone of the interviews taken after the Japanese American Reparations Movement organized in the mid 1970s compared to earlier interviews.

Your taxpayer dollars being used to "re-educate the public" regarding the evacuation of ethnic Japanese from the west coast military zones in 1942. The role of America's politicians is to legislate, not re-educate. Scroll down to "Recipient List" and learn who's feeding at the reparations money trough. How can a scholar write an objective historical analysis on the evacuation when the funding is coming from the taxpayer through these people? It's akin to the booze industry financing a study that concludes binge drinking is healthy.

An excellent example of where your taxpayer dollars are going to mislead the public and brainwash your kids. You can bet Densho is on the CCLPEP "Recipient List".

Local pro-reparations political pressure group that claims to represent all Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island. These folks have done more to damage decades old friendships and acquaintances on Bainbridge Island than Pearl Harbor ever did. More than a few Bainbridge Islanders are asking, "When did BIJAC hijack our history?"

University of Washington Library site provides some interesting primary documents that are worth reading if you can tolerate the pro-reparations revisionist commentary (incarceration, etc..) courtesy of the site's developer.

Conservative leaning English language Tokyo daily.

Liberal leaning English language Tokyo daily.

Moderate leaning English language Tokyo daily.

Popular web news source provides stories you'll not find elsewhere. A good place to debate reparations related news stories when they have them.

Best source on the web to research the conveniently forgotten history of German Americans after Pearl Harbor, many of whom were interned alongside Japanese Americans. When German Americans attempted to receive official recognition for their sufferings during the war, the Japanese American reparations movement resisted them every step of the way.

College professor feeds at the reparations trough and writes a book describing how great the Heart Mountain draft resistors were. Somewhat of a darling in the pro-reparations community, he blogs extensively on the evacuation and bans those who disagree from providing feedback.

When Japanese naval forces struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, I was studying English at a private school in San Francisco, the Drew School. I had come to America six months earlier as a student, not knowing, of course, that war was coming.

The Western Defense Command, headquartered in the Presidio of San Francisco, declared a 75-mile coastal strip from Washington through Oregon to California as Military Zone Number 1, from which all persons of Japanese ancestry were to be evacuated before the end of March 1942. I moved out of this zone to Visalia in the San Joaquin Valley. In a few months, however, the Army ordered the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from all of California, the western half of Oregon and Washington and from the lower one-third of Arizona.

If I had gone to, for instance, the Middle West during the very first months of 1942, I would not have been affected by the Army policy. Along with people from Visalia and vicinities, therefore, I went to a war relocation center at Poston, Arizona, which had been hastily built in the desert. The summer I spent there was the hottest I had ever experienced. But food in the mess hall was plentiful. School classes were provided for youngsters of all grades. Some Japanese residents formed a kabuki group to stage classical numbers.

My intellectual life in the Arizona desert was not a total loss - I was able to improve my English because I taught Japanese to Nisei residents by using English as medium of instruction.

From the very beginning of this camp life, I did not expect I would have to live in the desert until the end of the war, which I am sure no one knew when it would end. Eight months later, the U.S. Government announced that any able-bodied person, citizen or alien, could leave a relocation center for gainful employment outside. I was one of the first to take advantage of this new policy.

When I went around the barracks to say good-bye to older campmates, one of them was puzzled and said, "Why do you leave here? This is the best (safest) place." I laughed and said I could not afford to sit idle there because I had come to America to study in school.

I began my freshman year in June 1943 in Chicago and completed requirements for a B.A. degree from Carleton College in January 1946. I also earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago before returning to Japan in 1948.

In Japan, I worked with The Japan Times, the oldest and largest English language daily newspaper published in Japan, for thirty-three years. I ended my career there as its Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director.

Currently, I am professor of "media English" and International Communication at Yachiyo International University.

In 1991, Kodansha Publishers, (Tokyo & New York) published my book titled, An Enemy Among Friends

Kiyoaki Murata

October 7, 1994

Tokyo, Japan

A resource on Japan and the Asia-Pacific for teachers, students, journalists and readers. To their credit the site offers articles by professional historians, revisionists and traditionalists. Somewhere in between is the 100% truth.

Dr. Masugi opposed the findings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians testifying, "In reviewing the Commission's report and recommendations, one encounters three leading characteristics: intellectual dishonesty, moral posturing, and political opportunism." His writings on the evacuation are insightful and credible given the sacrifices of his own family members after Pearl Harbor. A real intellectual hero with guts.