Collection Guide
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Japanese American Incarceration Collection
LSC.0131
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Collection of Material about Japanese American incarceration
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.0131
Physical Description:
4.6 Linear Feet
(4 boxes and 1 oversize folder)
Date (inclusive): 1929-1956
Date (bulk): 1942-1946
Abstract: The collection consists of publications and press releases by the United States War Relocation Authority (WRA), in addition
to yearbooks and pamphlets created by Japanese American incarcerees and advocacy groups, with an emphasis on the Manzanar
and Minidoka incarceration camps.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS UNPROCESSED AUDIO MATERIALS: Materials are not currently available for access and will require further processing
and assessment. If you have questions about this material please email spec-coll@library.ucla.edu.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Ralph P. Merritt, 1946. Additional items are the gift of Bradford Smith, 1952.
[Identification of item], Collection of material about Japanese American incarceration (Collection 131). UCLA Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9942327683606533
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
The materials in Collection 131 were extracted from Collection 122, the Manzanar War Relocation Center records (formerly titled
the U.S. War Relocation Authority Archive) in 1971, when that collection was arranged and described. The materials were given
summary description in 1979.
Further processing was performed by Christen Sasaki, with assistance from Laurel McPhee, in the Center for Primary Research
and Training, in 2005. Items were inventoried, housed in folders, and arranged into series to enhance access to the collection.
A machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé and edited by Josh Fiala, Laurel McPhee, and Amy Shung-Gee Wong.
Description updates were undertaken by Rishi Guné and Kuhelika Ghosh as part of a 2019 CFPRT Redescription Project. Euphemistic
terms such as "internment" were updated to reflect preferred terminology outlined in the
Power of Words Handbook from the Japanese American Citizens League.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit
feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form
located on our website:
Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
The collection consists primarily of materials from the United States War Relocation Authority related to Japanese Americans
and forced removal. Included are various War Authority publications and pamphlets;
The Minidoka irrigator, a weekly newspaper published at the Minidoka Relocation Center (Hunt, Idaho); camp newsletters from Puyallup Assembly Center
(unofficially called Camp Harmony); and miscellaneous publications related to the Manzanar inconcentration camp in Owens Valley,
CA. In addition are yearbooks and pamphlets created by Japanese American incarcerees and advocacy groups, such as the Japanese
American Citizens League (JACL), with an emphasis on the Manzanar and Minidoka incarceration camps; and speeches, clippings
of published articles, and Master's theses. The collection also includes a recording of
The Exile's Return, a production of CBS-KNX News (1956) and several reproduced sketches by artist Mine Okubo.
Arranged in the following series:
- War Relocation Authority (WRA), 1942-1946
- Incarceration camps, 1942-1945
- Miscellaneous, 1929-1956.
Manzanar War Relocation Center records (Collection 122). Available at UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Japanese American Research Project collection of material about Japanese in the United States (Collection 2010). Available at UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
Concentration camps -- United States
Concentration camp inmates' writings
United States--War Relocation Authority.