In February, 1942, Presidential order forced the immediate detention of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. These men, women and children were forced to leave their homes and abandon their property to spend the war years in one of 10 internment camps. Fifty years later, UCLA's Wight Art Gallery and the Japanese American National Museum mounted a remarkable exhibit of artwork created in the camps. Karin Higa, Curator, conducts a personal tour of the historic exhibition.

Follow the links for biographical information on these featured artists:

• Hisako Hibi
• Kenjiro Nomura
• Chiura Obata

For more information:

• Japanese American National Museum promotes the understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by preserving, interpreting and sharing the experiences of Japanese Americans.
• The UCLA Asian American Studies Center enriches the experience of the entire university by contributing to an understanding of the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans in our society.

For information on museums and exhibits:

• Japanese American Internment Memorial commissioned by the San Jose Public Art Program and initiated by the Commission on the Internment of Local Japanese Americans, was dedicated on March 5, 1994 by its sculptor, Ruth Asawa.
• Masumi Hayashi Photography focuses on a body of work dealing with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Professor Hayashi, Cleveland State University, shows remnants of the internment camps through her panoramic photo collages. Hayashi also interviewed camp survivors in different areas of the United States and Canada and collected some of their personal photographs.
• University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library exhibits a sampling of the available resources in the Special Collections and other private collections, which were generously lent for this exhibit: Japanese-American Internment Camps During World War II.

Some informative resources:

• America's Concentration Camps provides some historical background, as well as examples of art work and literature by the interned Japanese Americans who sought an outlet for their talents and feelings.
• Children of the Camps, a PBS documentary, deals with the more than 60,000 Japanese American children who were interned behind barbed wire during World War II. Capturing the experiences of six of these children, the film vividly portrays their personal journey to heal the deep wounds they suffered from this experience.
• Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project provides enhanced access to the University of Washington library's holdings on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
• Japanese American Network is a partnership of Japanese-American organizations based in Los Angeles. The goal is to encourage the use of interactive communication technologies to exchange information about Japanese Americans -- art, culture, community, history, news, events, social services, and public policy issues.
• Museum of the City of San Francisco contains archived San Francisco News articles covering the internment of Japanese Americans beginning in 1942.

UCLA programs currently running on UCTV:

• Bernard Brodie Distinguished Lecture: Talking Peace -- Jimmy Carter
• A Conversation with UCLA Professor Emeritus Paul D. Boyer
• A Conversation with UCLA Professor Louis J. Ignarro
• Do Fish Have Noses?
• Erick Hawkins 1964
• The Evolution of International Entrepreneurship
• Experiences in International Entrepreneurship
• Faculty Research Lectures
  • Giorgio Buccellati
  • Robert B. Goldberg
  • Harvey R. Herschman
  • Carole Pateman
  • Michael E. Phelps
  • S. Lawrence Zipursky
  • Christopher B. Donnan
  • Andrea M. Ghez
• Mildred Mathias: A Lifetime of Memories
• Rethinking National Security
• Roth Quartet: The Sixteen Quartets of Beethoven
• The Struggle for Social Justice: Excerpts from a Symposium on Recognition, Peparations and Redress
  • Accounting for the Debt: Appeasement, Apology or Accountability
  • Achieving Social Justice: What Form of Redress?
  • The Struggle of Inequality: Manning Marable, Columbia University
• The View From Within: Japanese-American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942-1945