November 19, 2007

Within months of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government began relocating over 100,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast to the nation’s interior, fearing they might assist in an invasion attempt. Two of ten centers, Jerome (Drew County) and Rohwer (Desha County), were constructed in Arkansas. Over 16,000 internees spent most of the war years in one of these relocation centers. Shown here is a typical street scene at the Rohwer compound in 1942.

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