Today’s post is written by Jessica Behrman, Archivist at The National Archives at Denver.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in Japanese-American incarceration at relocation centers across remote areas of the western U.S. and Arkansas.[1] This series is part of Record Group 21, Records of District Courts of the United States. The National Archives at Denver holds files for some of the prisoners interred at Heart Mountain who took part in resisting the World War II draft. The case files document resistance from individual internees, their arrests and relocations to McNeal Island Penitentiary in Washington and Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, prison releases, and parole recommendations.
Many of the interned men, who were American citizens, resisted the draft. In a letter dated April 5,1944, Heart Mountain Relocation Project Director Guy Robertson wrote to U.S. District Court Probation Officer Joseph B. Lutz: “We have given much thought to your inquiry about the Japanese-American boys who are now awaiting arraignment before the Grand Jury for failure to report for pre-induction physicals under the Selective Service Act … It is difficult to determine whether these boys responded as they did because of some personal conviction or as a result of influences which had been exerted on them by other people in the Center.” This series contains case files for 35 internees who were members of the Fair Play Committee. The Committee was a membership organization at Heart Mountain that protested the draft of Nisei (U.S. citizens born to parents of Japanese immigrants), into the U.S. military. All 35 Nisei were charged in 1944 with violating the Selective Training and Service Act for failing to report for their initial physical exam. The reports offer a small glimpse into the struggles families were having with internment and the possibility of their sons leaving to fight. The Leavenworth Penitentiary admission summary for Isamu Horino, originally from Los Angeles, documents his family background.
This man mentions that both of his parents were born in Japan, his father now 58 years old…Mother died in 1943, her death being due, according to inmate, to incompetence in the hospital at the Relocation Center. She died at the age of 47…Four of his brothers are now in the United States Army; another brother is still at Heart Mountain, Wyoming but he will soon be at this institution, according to inmate. He also has one sister living at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, with whom father is staying at the present time. He and his brother are apparently the only delinquent members of the family.
Isamu was released on parole from Leavenworth on February 28, 1946 after initially being denied parole earlier in the month, with $28.80 in cash. The reports on recommendations for parole show that when prisoners were conditionally released, they were allowed to move to where they had a support network of some kind or where they had been promised a job. James M. Minatani, released on September 16, 1946 to Nyssa, Oregon contains this abstract: “Attached is the Probation Officer’s approval of the conditional release plans for this inmate for Nyssa, Oregon, where Mr. Hugh N. Lamb will act as Parole Advisor and Mr. Roy Hirai will employ him as farm hand at 75 cents per hour.”
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 served as a formal apology from the U.S. government to the prisoners and their families. The National Archives page World War II Incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans, contains links to records and teaching materials on this topic. The Densho Project serves as an excellent source of information on Japanese-American internment “document[ing] the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished.”[2]
[1] “Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration (1942)” The. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, accessed February 5, 2025, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066
[2] Densho: Preserving Japanese American stories of the past for generations of tomorrow, accessed February 7, 2025, densho.org.