This infant headstone of a Japanese-American is located in a cemetery near the memorial commemorating Rohwer Relocation Center at Rohwer, AR.
American Citizens Interned!
Japanese-American Internment Center in Rohwer, Arkansas
During a recent trip to
Southeast Arkansas
a little known and seldom discussed event from
America’s past was
discovered in the sleepy, almost invisible location called Rohwer, Arkansas.
Rohwer is about six miles from the Potlatch (now Clearwater Paper Co.)
paperboard mill near McGehee, Arkansas.
The Rohwer Relocation Center was built in the middle of flat, mosquito infested, desolate farm fields away from any major facilities, which, like other relocation centers scattered around rural America have been mostly ignored by Americans as we attempt to forget unsavory chapters in our history.
However, if one ever gets the opportunity to stand in the place where people were oppressed, some died there and rest there still in a small memorial, you will know that great pain and suffering were endured by a few Americans of Japanese descent at Rohwer to alleviate unjustified fear in the general population.
The graves tell the story of the suffering the 8,500 American-Japanese endured here and the inscribed memorial tell the story of their dedication to freedom and America and the actual folly of President Roosevelt’s action and the unjustified fears of the country at that time.
The inscription on the Memorial to be seen at the site of The Rohwer Relocation Center in Rohwer, Arkansas tells the story and is reprinted here:
“After Pearl Harbor, a wave of hysteria swept the country and nearly 112,000 Japanese-American citizens came under suspicion as to their loyalty to the United States. As a result President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority by executive order No. 9066 on May 18, 1942 with power to relocate and intern those people of Japanese ancestry residing on the west coast of the United States.
Under the auspices of the War Relocation Authority, the Rohwer Relocation Center was established on Sept. 18, 1942. The first of some 8,500 Japanese-Americans arrived at Rohwer for internment on that date.
In February 1943, the U.S. Army established the 100th Batalion and the 442nd Regimental Combet team, and all Nisei (Japanese) unit. This unit served with great valor and distinguished itself in the European Theater. Ironically, the families of this unit remained interned.
We are proud to remember that the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regiment were the most highly decorated of all units during WWII. The most courageous and notable battles fought by the units included those at Salerno, Anzio and Cassino, as well as the rescue of the Texas Lost Battalion.
It should be remembered that during the internment years, thousands of Japanese-Americans volunteered or were drafted to serve in military intelligence operations in the Pacific War with Japan. Three decades following the end of WWII, information was finally made public which described the valor and courage exhibited by these individuals and their secret contributions to the Pacific victory.
At last the end of WWII on Nov. 30, 1945, the last Japanese-American left Rohwer, ending 3-1/2 years of internment.”
The inscription on the opposite side of the Memorial states:
I am an American of Japanese American ancestry and appreciate the advantages of our nation. I glory in her heritage. I trust in her future. We are granted liberties and opportunities greater than anywhere in the world. We are entrusted with responsibilities of the franchise; permitted to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak and act as we please—-as a free man.”
Pictured top right: This monument to Japanese-American soldiers, whose families were interned during WWII, was built to remember the soldiers' service in the U.S. Fifth Army’s 100th Battalion and 442nd Regiment.
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Japanese Internment Camp in Kooskia 1943-45
The Kooskia Internment Camp is an obscure and virtually forgotten World War II detention facility that was located in a remote area of north central Idaho, 30 miles from the town of Kooskia, and six miles east of the hamlet of Lowell, at Canyon Creek. It held men of Japanese ancestry who were termed “enemy aliens”, even though most of them were long-time U.S. residents, denied naturalization by racist U.S. laws.
Immediately following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, numerous Japanese, German, and Italian aliens were arrested and detained on no specific grounds, without the due process guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution, and were sent to INS detention camps at Fort Missoula, MT; Bismarck, ND and elsewhere.
The INS camps were separate and distinct from the ten major camps under War Relocation Authority (WRA) supervision. The WRA camp, including one at Minidoka, in southern Idaho, house some 120,000 American citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who were unconstitutionally evacuated, relocated, and imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II.
Although there were a number of Justice Department internment camps throughout the United States during WWII, the Kooskia Internment International Camp was unique because it was the only camp of its kind in the United States. Its inmates had volunteered to go there from other camps, and received wages for their work. A total of some 265 male Japanese aliens; 24 male and three female Caucasian civilian employees; two male internee doctors, one Italian and one German; and one male Japanese American interpreter occupied the Kooskia Internment Camp at various times between May 1943 and May 1945.
Although some of the internees held camp jobs, most of the men were construction workers for a portion of the present Highway 12 between Lewiston, Idaho and Missoula, MT. Parallel to the wild and scenic Lochsa River.
The Japanese internees at the Kooskia camp came from Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Flordia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Lousiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Washington.