Yellow Bowl Project

Breaking the Silence: Lessons of Democracy from the World War II Honouliuli Internment and POW Camp in Hawai’i is a collection of articles authored by University of Hawai’i-West O’ahu faculty from eight different academic disciplines and scholars and community partners from Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i, Densho, King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center, and the National Park Service. The research amassed from oral histories, archival collections, and field work examines the archaeological, historical, sociological, political, psychological, and cultural aspects and impacts of World War II confinement in Honouliuli. The physical remains of Honouliuli Internment and POW Camp still lie hidden deep within a gulch located just a few miles inland from the famed World War II site of Pearl Harbor. That is not all that is hidden. The stories, experiences, and lasting influence of the internment of American civilians and resident aliens of Japanese and Okinawan ancestry, local “suspect” Europeans categorized as “Germans” and “Italians,” as well as POWS of Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Italian and Filipino origin remain largely unknown and untold. In this special issue of Social Process in Hawai’i we aim to uncover the facts of the Honouliuli internment and imprisonment experiences and the valuable lessons that can be learned, so that these harrowing injustices might never be repeated again.

The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp: Based on a Classroom Diary.During World War II, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Hardworking and patriotic, Japanese Americans were as stunned by the attack as the rest of the country. Still, the U.S. government questioned their loyalty, and within hours of the invasion, FBI agents searched their homes. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the army the power to establish military zones in the U.S. "from which any or all persons may be excluded as deemed necessary." As a result, thousands of Japanese Americans were ordered to leave their homes and move to war relocation centers.Lillian "Anne" Yamauchi Hori was among the unfortunate Americans removed to an internment camp in Topaz, Utah. During her time there, she taught a third-grade class that kept a daily diary. Although the words and drawings in the twenty entries excerpted here reveal the injustices experienced by the children, the students were remarkably resilient. They collected desert pets, put on plays, and celebrated holidays. With invaluable commentary and archival photographs, Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat have placed the diary in a historical context, expanding on the details of daily life in a war relocation camp.

One introductory booklet, 14 reproductions of contemporary documents, and 6 broadsheets.

During World War II, over 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed and confined for four years in sixteen camps located throughout the western half of the United States. Yet the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps remains a largely unknown episode of World War II history. Indeed, many of the internees themselves do not wish to speak of it, even to their own family members. In these selections, Alice Yang Murray invites students to investigate this event and to review and challenge the conventional interpretations of its significance. The selections explore the U.S. government's role in planning and carrying out the removal and internment of thousands of citizens, resident aliens, and foreign nationals, and the ways in which Japanese Americans coped with or resisted their removal and incarceration.

In 1942, Bill Manbo (1908-1992) and his family were forced from their Hollywood home into the Japanese American internment camp at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. While there, Manbo documented both the bleakness and beauty of his surroundings, using Kodachrome film, a technology then just seven years old, to capture community celebrations and to record his family's struggle to maintain a normal life under the harsh conditions of racial imprisonment. Colors of Confinement showcases sixty-five stunning images from this extremely rare collection of color photographs, presented along with three interpretive essays by leading scholars and a reflective, personal essay by a former Heart Mountain internee. The subjects of these haunting photos are the routine fare of an amateur photographer: parades, cultural events, people at play, Manbo's son. But the images are set against the backdrop of the barbed-wire enclosure surrounding the Heart Mountain Relocation Center and the dramatic expanse of Wyoming sky and landscape. The accompanying essays illuminate these scenes as they trace a tumultuous history unfolding just beyond the camera's lens, giving readers insight into Japanese American cultural life and the stark realities of life in the camps.

Provides an authoritative account of the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens during World War II Less than three months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and inflamed the nation, President Roosevelt signed an executive order declaring parts of four western states to be a war zone operating under military rule. The U.S. Army immediately began rounding up thousands of Japanese-Americans, sometimes giving them less than 24 hours to vacate their houses and farms. For the rest of the war, these victims of war hysteria were imprisoned in primitive camps. In Infamy, the story of this appalling chapter in American history is told more powerfully than ever before.