Lost River Camps

What happend to the Japanese once they came out of concentration camps?

I am doing a final project on it and would like to know how they were treated when they left the concentration camps.

Public Comments

1. Lets not call them concentration camps. Some might call it a matter of semantics, but the term "concentration camp" conjures up images of Buchenwald and Auschwitz, death camps where millions were killed in industrial level murder. The Japanese internment camps provided their residents with food, shelter, education, and medical care. I am in no way shape or form defending or trying to justify the placement of Americans in these camps, just distinguishing them from the Nazi murder factories. It was a despicable thing to do, but people were provided with adequate care and living conditions. Now, after the war the Japanese- Americans were cut loose. Many of them had had their homes and property confiscated and sold, which was terrible. There was no formal discrimination afterward however. Most of them just wanted to get on with their lives and put the experience behind them. I think their was an underlying sense of shame and guilt amongst some Americans for what the Japanese-Americans were put through, and they deserved to feel this guilt. Japanese- Americans particularly the Nisei soldiers of the 442nd regimental combat team had distinguished themselves as highly decorated combat veterans during WWII, willing to sacrifice their lives for their country, just as any other patriotic American would.
2. They went home and started over. Often they had lost everything for a song to Anglo Americans. They were still abused often by people who had lost relatives in the Pacific. But they were hard working, intelligent, thrifty. They gradually made their life back into mainstream America. The wrong done to them was one of the dark chapters of our history. It did not even start to be corrected until the 1970's.
3. Where I live (BC, Canada) was founded on a small Japanese fishing village. During the war, Japanese were rounded up and sent to internment camps in the interior of our province. During this time most of their assets were seized. Following the war they were released. Some Japanese had manged to hide their assets (land, money, furniture, jewelry, etc) with non-Japanese and were able to reclaim them. However, many had to start over. Several decades later the Federal government offered them reparations (a pitiful amount). An interesting tidbit for our area is that many families refused to take the money and donated it towards the building of a Japanese cultural center that is still in use.
4. Before they got to the camp, their homes and possessions were taken away and their businesses were lost. So when they left the camp (internment camp) they had nothing and they had nowhere to go. Some Japanese were forced to be sent to Japan while some were sent to live in certain areas.
5. They had to start all over again in a world that hates them even more than when they first came.
6. my mother in law was in one of those "camps" the government came and took them from their house with nothing but a suitcase for each one. they lost everything they were treated misserable there people and guards would spit on them throw,rocks and her sister was even raped. when they were let out no apology, no money nothing. Her sister and father were sent back to japan even though their family had been here for 100 yrs. they did not even speak the language. it severly tramatized her to the point that she never went outside unless it was an emergency.