The Camps America Built is a multimedia project that documents the legacies of Japanese American incarceration during World War II.
In the wake of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—two-thirds of whom were U.S.-born citizens—were forcibly displaced from their homes and incarcerated in government-run concentration camps across the country. Since the end of the war, former incarcerees and their descendants have been making "pilgrimages" to these sites in search of healing and closure.
This project documents the ten camps as they stand today and the families who journey back to them. Each sitter is asked to handwrite a letter: for former incarcerees, a letter to their younger self when they were incarcerated, and for descendants, a letter to a former incarceree they are commemorating. Through personal letters and photographs of over 80 former incarcerees and descendants, we explore a key question: what does it mean to be American?
This project was supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society.
For an in-depth exploration into one of the families, watch this short film.
View the full project here.
Nikki Nojima Louis
Former Incarceree
Nikki Nojima Louis was celebrating her fourth birthday when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That evening, the FBI entered her home and arrested her father. “They didn’t have to explain anything to you. No due process. The grounds were: you were Japanese,” she says. “We never lived together as a family again.”
While her father was detained, Nikki and her mother were sent to Puyallup Assembly Center and transferred to Minidoka. Nikki and her mother lived in a barrack with a single lightbulb and a coal-burning pot belly stove. “We were always standing in line,” she says. “Standing in line to eat in the mess hall. Standing in line to do laundry. Standing in line to order supplies or get to the latrines.”
Shortly before the end of the war, Nikki and her mother left camp on early release and headed to Chicago. “My mother no longer wanted to live around Japanese Americans,” Nikki says. Nikki’s mother worked as a maid at a local hotel while enrolling Nikki in an all-white private school. By third grade, Nikki asked to change her name, and her mother embraced the idea.
Read the full story here.
Kazuo Ideno
Former Incarceree
Kazuo Ideno was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kazuo’s father—a kendo instructor who ran a local dojo—was taken by the FBI and detained at the Santa Fe Internment Camp in New Mexico. Within weeks, Kazuo’s mother, brother and he were sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center for six months and transferred to Rohwer for several months before reuniting with his father at the Crystal City Internment Camp during the summer of 1943.
Kazuo remembers that his father looked “beaten down” after their long-awaited reunion. Years later, he learned that during his time in Santa Fe, a drunken guard had stabbed his father in the back with a bayonet. On another occasion, Kazuo’s father was ordered to dig a burial site for fellow incarcerees who were shot by a guard. Prior to the war, Kazuo’s father worked as a bookkeeper and kendo instructor. “After that, it was all menial jobs,” Kazuo says. “He lost a lot of ambition.”
In high school, Kazuo decided to change his name to Gene—a decision he attributes to his formative years in camp. “I just remember the sense of guilt. I was old enough to realize that we’re in prison—a prison with barbed wire, guards with rifles. That we did something wrong. That I did something wrong,” he says. “I think that’s one of the motivations for why I wanted to […] show that I’m an American. I wanted to do everything I could to prove that fact.”
Read the full story here.
Fujiko Tamura Gardner
Former Incarceree
Fujiko Tamura Gardner was nine when her family was forced to leave their farm in Fife, WA and sent to Minidoka.
Prior to their incarceration, Fujiko’s father Uichi was a hardworking man. But as the days went by, he grew despondent. Displaced from his home just weeks before harvest, he was also forced to abandon a tractor, used Chevy pickup, and delivery truck he had spent years saving for. “My father changed so drastically,” Fujiko says.
As his mental health declined, Uichi refused to leave his barrack. “He chose not to go to the mess halls or the latrines,” Fujiko says. Fujiko and her sister brought back meals from the mess hall and changed his chamber pot twice a day. “My mother chose to stay with him because I think she thought that if he found a way, he would have ended his life,” she says.
After the war, Fujiko’s family moved into low-income housing in Tacoma. Upon graduating high school, Fujiko and her sister took up office jobs to move their parents out of the projects and into a new home. “We made sure that mom and dad had a big backyard to grow vegetables in,” she says.
Read the full story here.
Henry Kaku
Descendant
Henry’s father, Keige Kaku, was serving in the U.S. Army when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Within a month, he was discharged and incarcerated in Poston.
When the U.S. government issued the infamous loyalty questionnaire, Keige refused to answer. Having already served in the military, he told officials, “You kicked me out of the Army and put me in this hell hole.” Keige was labeled a “No-No Boy,” and he and his family were transferred to Tule Lake. In 1945, Keige was forcibly separated from his family and sent to Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, during which time his wife Sumiko gave birth to their first son.
After four years of incarceration and nearly a year apart, Keige and Sumiko made the difficult decision to renounce their U.S. citizenship. “My father was serving in the Army, then suddenly he’s kicked out, locked up, and asked to prove his loyalty on a sheet of paper,” Henry says. “The only way he felt he could hold on to his dignity was to renounce his citizenship.” In March of 1946, the Kaku family was deported to Japan, where Henry was born.
After nearly a decade of forging a life in Japan, Keige learned of civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins’ efforts to help renunciants restore their U.S. citizenship. With Collins’ support, they successfully argued their case in court, and in 1956, the Kaku family regained their U.S. passports and returned to California.
Read the full story here.
Akemi Johnson
Descendant
Akemi Johnson's grandfather, George Narita, was 21 years old when he and his family were displaced from their home in Isleton, CA, and incarcerated at Tule Lake. His father had been arrested by the FBI shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack and imprisoned in multiple detention centers and Department of Justice internment camps. As his health deteriorated, he was granted permission to reunite with his family in Tule Lake, but he passed away within a year, leaving George’s mother to care for their five children alone.
When presented with the controversial loyalty questionnaire, George answered “no” to Questions 27 and 28, fearing that a “yes” response would result in being drafted, leaving his newly widowed mother without support. As a result, he was labeled “disloyal” by the U.S. government.
In 1944, after President Roosevelt signed the Denaturalization Act, thousands of incarcerees renounced their U.S. citizenship in protest of their unconstitutional treatment. That winter, George chose to renounce his citizenship as well. Shortly after, the Department of Justice sent him an alien registration card with a request for his signature to confirm receipt. On the signature line, he defiantly wrote:
“I am signing under protest because I believe myself to be an American citizen.”
Read the full story here.
Nami Mitsuko Slobig
Descendant
Nami Mitsuko Slobig’s great-aunt, Mary Higuchi, was born in Los Angeles. She was three years old when she and her family were displaced from their home and incarcerated at Poston.
Before their imprisonment, Mary’s family stored their belongings in a barn. When they returned after the war, it had been ransacked—only broken boxes and shattered dishes remained. With no home to return to, they moved into a house with no indoor plumbing. It took nearly a decade of saving before the family could afford to buy their own farmland.
Tragically, soon after purchasing the land, Mary’s father died of a heart attack. Her mother, who spoke no English and had no prior agricultural experience, took over the 10-acre farm to raise Mary and her three siblings. She tilled the soil herself, determined to carry on.
Nami says visiting Poston was an emotional experience for her family. “My mom cried a lot,” she says. “I don’t really know how I felt, but I know how she felt. And I know why she felt that way.”
Read the full story here.
View the full project here.