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During World War II, the United States government removed approximately 117,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans from the west coast of the United States, Alaska and parts of Arizona, under the authorization of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Presidential Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. The United States government first imprisoned Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the west coast, in Alaska and in part of Arizona in Assembly Centers. By October of 1942, the U.S. government had moved 110,000 people to ten semi-permanent new cities, the government named Relocation Centers, as shown in red on the map below. The Relocation Centers represent ten of the sites that collectively are known as Japanese American confinement sites.

The digital collection featured here includes three types of images relating to the Relocation Centers: 1) architectural drawings 2) engineering plans or maps and 3) objects made or related to the Relocation Centers.

These images are provided as a research resource of primary graphic documentation of the built environments of the Relocation Centers for students, teachers, researchers, and the general public.

The Mapping and Building of Japanese American Confinement