Collection of Material about Japanese American incarceration, 1929-1956, bulk 1942-1946

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Summary

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.
Extent:
4.6 Linear Feet (4 boxes and 1 oversize folder)
Language:
Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[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.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Ralph P. Merritt, 1946. Additional items are the gift of Bradford Smith, 1952.
Processing information:

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.

Arrangement:

Arranged in the following series:

  1. War Relocation Authority (WRA), 1942-1946
  2. Incarceration camps, 1942-1945
  3. Miscellaneous, 1929-1956.

Physical / 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.

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.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Terms of access:

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.

Preferred citation:

[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.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
Website