“The Stockton bunch were influenced quite a bit by the Santa Anita fellows and they were getting pretty wild,” said Kubota. Born in Allen, Texas in 1886, he was an army chaplain in France in World War I. Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery in Desha County, Arkansas, also known as the Nisei Camp Cemetery, is one of only three extant Japanese American relocation center cemeteries in the United States. degree from Vanderbilt University in 1920, he went to Japan as a missionary for the Disciples of Christ and taught there as well. In contrast to most of the relocation center sites, many of the blocks in the Rohwer Center are shaded by trees. As at other WRA camps, talent shows and other performances by inmate groups served as one of the most popular forms of entertainment. The camp was still under construction when the first inmates began to arrive. Brown claimed that he thought they had been trying to escape. Adults took jobs with the administration, hospital, schools, and mess halls, in addition to agricultural work or labor details outside camp. [1] Deterioration is visible in photographs of the site. The tallest structure is the smokestack from the hospital incinerator. Densho is a Japanese term meaning “to pass on to the next generation,” or to leave a legacy. These barracks were called “recreation halls” at all of the other WRA camps, but at Rohwer, they were called “public service halls” or “P.S. Rohwer Relocation Center The Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County was one of two World War II –era incarceration camps built in the state to house Japanese Americans from the West Coast, the other being the Jerome Relocation Center (Chicot and Drew counties). The Rohwer War Relocation Center was a World War II Japanese American concentration camp located in rural southeastern Arkansas, in Desha County. According to Community Analyst Charles Wisdom, the non-Southerners on the staff considered the Southerners “to be basically unfriendly, or at best indifferent to the evacuees.” One exception was Joseph Boone Hunter, the chief of community services and one of three assistant directors at Rohwer under Project Director Ray D. Johnston. Various building foundations, walkways, culverts and other improvements are still visible and some are still in use by the local residents. “There is strong Santa Anita-Stockton rivalry,” Rohwer Outpost managing editor Kaz Oshiki told WRA Community Activities Supervisor Ed Marks during the latter’s October 1942 visit. "I found out one of my neighbors, Sadami Yada, and her brother, Sam Yada, and his family, were in camps at Rohwer Relocation Camps. He met his wife, fellow missionary Mary Cleary, there, and their two children were born in Japan. “The architects or engineers who planned them must have anticipated a very short race of people.”. Rohwer was one of the last camps to close, with the last inmates leaving on November 30, 1945. Rohwer was located at 140 feet of elevation in Desha County in southeastern Arkansas, 110 miles … After another trip to Japan in 1941, Hunter aided Japanese Americans incarcerated at Santa Anita and Manzanar before being hired at Rohwer. A barrack from Rohwer Internment Camp … These were used to supplement the inmates' food rations (kept to a bare minimum of 37 cents a day per inmate to avoid rumors that the WRA was "coddling" Japanese Americans).[2]. [Header image: Original WRA caption: “Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Over 10,000 evacuees passed through Rohwer during its existence, and over two thirds of these were American citizens. The loyalty questionnaire and subsequent recruitment efforts proved especially unpopular in the Jerome camp, located 27 miles south of Rohwer. But as the fall of 1945 approached, thousands of inmates remained in Rohwer, a disproportionate share of whom were children. Most of the administrative staff at Rohwer were white Southerners, including both locals from southeast Arkansas and those from other parts of the South. Full citations will be included there, but feel free to post questions in the comments or email us at info@densho.org in the meantime! We always went out all draped out in style like the L.A. fellows so that we got along good.”. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. We were known as the Sharpies from Stockton and they thought we weren’t so ‘square’ when they saw how we were dressed. Furushiro managed to avoid injury beyond powder burns even though he had been less than feet away from the shooter. About 2,000 students attended the camp's schools, which were opened on November 9, 1942 after some delay. The monument was built by internees to honor those Japanese who served in the european theater during the war. “Most of the fellows started to wear drapes and let their hair grow long like the L.A. guys.” Once they started acting the part, Sato said, “we started to meet a lot of the L.A. fellows and girls. She did not see her parents again until 1948. Over 8,000 of its inmates left to return to their original homes. On November 10, 1942, W. M. Wood, a 72 year old local resident, fired a shotgun at Private Louis Furushiro in a Dermott café. The largest remaining structure is the high school gymnasium/auditorium, which was added to and was in service with the local school before it closed in July 2004. The Rohwer War Relocation Center was a World War II Japanese American internment camp located in rural southeastern Arkansas, in Desha County. The influx of Japanese Americans inspired a particularly virulent reaction from state officials led by Governor Homer Adkins, a Ku Klux Klan member, who instructed Arkansas colleges to bar Japanese American resettlers and limited their work on local farms. The legacy we offer is an American story with ongoing relevance: during World War II, the United States government incarcerated innocent people solely because of their ancestry. The Rohwer population was almost equally divided between those from the Stockton and Santa Anita Assembly Centers. Perhaps the most unusual use of a public service hall was P.S. In response, the Rohwer Community Council began plans to start its own school. It closed on November 30, 1945. This was the only camp to have a stockade, or military-style prison. They were transferred to the "segregation center" at Tule Lake, California. [9] Thirty-one who came from Rohwer died in action, and their names are inscribed on the memorial, as well as a later memorial raised nearby.[10]. Furushiro, who was stationed at Camp Robinson, had been on his way to visit his sister in Rohwer. The camp cemetery survives as the only site still identified as having been part of the internment center. The rail line used to bring internees and supplies to the camp remains, though it is apparently abandoned. “We sort of looked up to them in awe I guess because they were from L.A. and they really acted like they had been around.”, “At first I didn’t want to meet too many of the Santa Anita bunch as I didn’t want to be taken for a sucker,” Sato added. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 8,000 Japanese Americans were interned at Rohwer—a 500-acre camp surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. "[1], In its summary on the Rohwer Relocation Center Cemetery, the National Park Service indicates that the cemetery's condition is threatened due to deterioration of the grave markers and monuments, but that ownership of the site is unclear. On November 13, M. C. Brown, a local tenant farmer, shot at three Japanese Americans from Rohwer who were working outside the camp with a white overseer, wounding two of them. All rights reserved. Origin of camp population: Mostly from Los Angeles(4,324)and San Joaquin (3,516) Counties Via "assembly centers": Most came from Santa Anita (4,415) or Stockton (3,802) "ASSEMBLY CENTERS": Rohwer also received the highest number of transfers from Jerome (2,734) upon that camp's closing Rural/Urban: Mostly urban Peak population: 8,475 The Japanese Americans were working in the woods under the supervision of a government engineer when the shooting occurred. With the end of the 1944–45 school year, Rohwer administrators announced that the schools would be shut down for the duration given the camp’s imminent closure. Over seventy years ago, my family and I were forced from our home in Los Angeles at gunpoint by 12, dubbed “Rohwer Toyland,” a toy library inmates set up for children aged six to fifteen. Its peak population reached 8,475 people. War hysteria, racial prejudice, and failure of political leadership led to the forced removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The Rohwer War Relocation Center was a World War II Japanese American internment camp located in rural southeastern Arkansas, in Desha County.It was in operation from September 18, 1942 until November 30, 1944, and held as In the decades after Rohwer’s closing, the camp cemetery has become the focus of preservation efforts and a symbol of the camp. It closed on November 30, 1945. He left Rohwer at the end of September 1944. Jerome internment camp to the southwest, and Rohwer camp to the northeast. Last autumn, Kimiko Marr, a JACL Watsonville-Santa Cruz chapter director, decided to organize a pilgrimage to the Rohwer and Jerome internment camps in southeast Arkansas. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Keep reading to learn more — and look for Brian at the pilgrimage to ask your own questions! In its National Historic Landmark summary on the Rohwer Relocation Center Cemetery, the National Park Service writes: Rohwer Relocation Camp was constructed in the late summer and early fall of 1942 as a result of Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942). 581 men[6] joined the U.S. Army from this camp, either volunteering or accepting their conscription into the legendary 100th Infantry Battalion,[7] the famed 442nd RCT[8] and MIS. Sign up for our Newsletter >Subscribe. While other WRA camps were seeing their populations gradually decline through 1943 and 1944 as inmates began to leave to “resettle” in areas outside the West Coast restricted area, Rohwer’s population suddenly increased by over a third with the arrival of 2,489 people from Jerome upon that camp’s closing in the summer of 1944. It was in operation from September 18, 1942, until November 30, 1945, and held as many as 8,475 Japanese Americans forcibly evacuated from California. Thinking that she would take a group of about 30 in the spring of 2018, she launched the “Unofficial Rohwer-Jerome Pilgrimage” Facebook page to publicize it. This was done in part to encourage Rohwer inmates to leave. There are buttons to push at each sign with a recording of George Takei. 42. This year’s Rohwer Pilgrimage will take place this weekend, and Densho Content Director Brian Niiya has collected ten little-known facts about the former incarceration site to get ready. The set-up of the questions was confusing and internees were suspicious of their true purpose. Finally, a private guard hired to protect the wood supply of one of the camp contractors fired birdshot at inmates, injuring them. One third of those removed were foreign-born Issei. Stay up to date on Densho News. Over seventy years ago, my family and I were forced from our home in Los Angeles at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers and sent to Rohwer, all because we Neither of these is marked in any way to indicate historical significance. They were among the most decorated and suffered some of the worst casualties in the war. The Santa Anita Nisei “sort of felt superior to the Stockton people as they thought we were just hicks,” said Kubota. Rohwer Relocation Camp, Cemetary , 1995, panoramic photo collage, 33"x 65". The remaining two-thirds were American born citizens–Nisei. According to the first Rohwer Reunion Booklet, the arrival of the Rohwer group brought the camp population back to nearly its peak “and camp activities were jumping again.”. Led by former Rohwer inmates and Hunter, the cemetery was dedicated as an Arkansas State Historical Park on 1961. For many Japanese Americans, the upheaval of losing everything, most importantly their right to freedom and a private, family life, caused irreparable harm. To arrive at camp, the incarcerees endured a three-day train ride to Arkansas. Rohwer was located 27 miles north of the other internment camp, Jerome Relocation Center. [2] The Rohwer War Relocation Center Cemetery is located here, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992.[1]. The Rohwer War Relocation Center was a World War II Japanese American internment camp located in rural southeastern Arkansas, in Desha County. As 500 acres (200 ha) of the site used for residences and other buildings, officials used the remainder of Rohwer's land to grow more than 100 agricultural products. Deterioration is discussed in a report from the National Park Service to the President. Rohwer inmates organized two kinds of private schools. The 10,161-acre (4,112 ha) of land on which Rohwer was built had been purchased by the Farm Security Administration from tax-delinquent landowners in the 1930s. Some of the rails date back to World War II and before. Camp director Ray D. Johnson wrote that Brown was “a hunter who apparently was either drinking or slightly deranged.” Whatever the case, Brown managed to escape going on trial for the shooting. Exhibits include a film, oral histories, photographs and personal artifacts of the internees. The information presented here has been excerpted from Densho’s new and improved Sites of Shame project, coming to a device near you in 2020. Brown claimed that he thought they had been trying to escape. Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, © Copyright 2019 Densho. The residents have done much to make their tar paper barracks more livable by the planting of flowers and vegetable gardens and the building of rustic walks and bridges. It was in operation from September 18, 1942 until November 30, 1944, and Shasta is 50 miles away and visible on a clear day. Dive into These YA Books on the Wartime Incarceration of Japanese Americans, Announcing Densho’s 2021 Artists-in-Residence, Join Densho for a Week of Action and Remembrance, Meet the Sansei Researcher Exploring the Intergenerational Impacts of Japanese American Incarceration, Supporters of Amache have pushed to establish it as a unit of the National Park System, a designation that could pu…, Write a short reflection on what you learned this week. [4] The decline in population, combined with earlier unrest over poor working conditions in the camp, resulted in authorities closing the Jerome camp at the end of June 1944. During this era, Arkansas had Jim Crow laws and continued with its disenfranchisement of African-American citizens started at the turn of the century. This rail line also served the Jerome War Relocation Cen… The Rohwer relocation camp cemetery, the only part of the camp that remains, is now a National Historic Landmark. 13, and the shoe store in P.S. “They must think we are midgets,” wrote Yoshie Ogata in her diary after her first day at Rohwer. Oral history interviews, photos, newspapers, and other primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration through redress with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration. The rail line used to bring internees and supplies to the camp remains, though it is apparently abandoned. The largest remaining structure is the high school gymnasium/auditorium, which was added to and was in service with the local school before it closed in July 2004. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The Rohwer Outpost (October 24, 1942 to July 21, 1945) was the newspaper of the Rohwer , Arkansas, concentration camp. After the Rohwer camp was closed in 1945, the barracks were removed by the surrounding communities and most were refashioned to suit other needs. The cemetery became a National Historic Landmark in July of 1992, and a new granite monument with bronze plaques was dedicated. [2], The architect of the camp was Edward F. Neild of Shreveport, Louisiana, who also designed the camp at Jerome. After the war was coming to a close, Rohwer shut down on November 30th, 1945, being the last camp to close. Ultimately the camp held administrative offices, schools, a hospital, and 36 residential blocks, each with twelve 20' by 120' barracks divided into several "apartments", as well as communal dining and sanitary facilities, all contained within a guarded barbed-wire fence. Generational “One of the amusing observations in this respect was the extreme lowness of these rods,” read a Reports Office summary of the living quarters. Your donations allow us make our material free to everyone and to continue in the important work of preserving the stories of the past for the generations of tomorrow. Rohwer held people from Los Angeles and San Joaquin County, California. Governor Homer Adkins initially opposed the WRA's proposal to build Rohwer and its neighbor, Jerome, in Arkansas, but relented after being assured that the Japanese American detainees would be controlled by armed white guards at these facilities and they would be removed from the state at the end of the war. A highlight for Rohwer inmates was the performances of traditional Japanese dance led by legendary dance teacher Fujima Kansuma, who had been based in Los Angeles before the war, and who was incarcerated at Rohwer. Though not technically permitted, many inmates operated private Japanese language schools for children out of their barracks, which the WRA knew about, but was unable to prevent. Brown, a tenant farmer on horseback on his way home from deer hunting, came across some Japanese Americans from the Rohwer camp, on a work detail in the woods. Rohwer became home to approximately 2,000 school-age children, who attended classes within the confines of the camp. He fired his gun, and one of the Japanese American men was struck in the hip by a pellet while another was wounded in the calf of the leg. In 2011, a coalition led by the University of Arkansas Little Rock received a Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant to restore the monuments and another in 2014 to restore the twenty-four headstones. Hunter had an unusual background. In 1943, the WRA required all adults in Rohwer and the other camps to submit to a series of questions. As with prewar Japanese language schools, sessions ran on weekday afternoons and evenings after regular school and on Saturdays. Only one family, incarcerated at Rohwer, ultimately remained in Arkansas. The monuments found within the camp's cemetery are perhaps the most poignant record of this time. She did not see her parents again until 1948. As at other camps, one slightly smaller barrack in each block was designated for recreational use. Some 2,147 others, a quarter of Jerome's population, were classified as "disloyal" after giving unfavorable responses to the questionnaire. However, the closet shelves and rods were extremely low. Extensive clearing and draining was necessary, making construction at the site a difficult and slow-going task. The Rohwer Japanese American Relocation Center in Arkansas is largely lost to history. Rower barracks had small rudimentary closets installed in individual living units. In his position, he oversaw many of the areas that involved interaction with the inmates including education, recreation, and religion. Rohwer. Given his experience in Japan, he was the staff “expert” on Japanese culture and psychology. As one might expect, initial encounters between the Stockton and Santa Anita groups resulted in a mixture of curiosity and conflict. Densho’s extensive digital collections chronicle the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. A large portion of Rohwer inmates were school-age children, most born in the US. Was there a new aspect of this history that you learned, or…. Together with the Tule Lake Segregation Center, Rohwer was the last WRA camp to close, on November 30, 1945.[2]. You can see the smokestack in the distance that was once the infirmary at the camp which gives a visual for just how large the camp was. It planned to use this facility to incarcerate ethnic Japanese, including American citizens from West Coast areas considered strategic to the war effort. Just as their three years of internment left an indelible mark on the landscape of their lives, so they altered the place called Rohwer, both figuratively and literally. The internment camp was officially declared open but not completed on September 18, 1942, and would operate under the direction of Project Director Ray D. Johnston. In all, ten camps were established in desolate sites, all chosen for their distance from the Pacific Coast. A pair of Nisei from Stockton, twenty-four year old Tsugio Kubota and twenty year old Isao Buddy Sato elaborated on the relationship in 1944 interviews with Charles Kikuchi. halls.” They were used in similar ways as at other camps, as makeshift churches, headquarters for clubs, venues for movie screenings, etc. It was one of two camps near St. Louis. Under this order, over 110,000 Japanese Americans and their immigrant parents were forcibly removed from the three Pacific Coast States—California, Oregon, and Washington. On November 13, M. C. Brown, a local tenant farmer, shot at three Japanese Americans from Rohwer who were working outside the camp with a white overseer, wounding two of them. [14], M.C. [13], The Japanese American Internment Museum opened in nearby McGehee, Arkansas in 2013 and serves as the history museum and unofficial visitor center for the Rohwer War Relocation Center. The former were a mostly rural population who came from Stockton, Lodi, French Camp, and other area communities; the latter included a mixture of Los Angeles city dwellers from Boyle Heights/East Los Angeles and other parts of the city, along with farmers from the southwestern and southeastern parts of Los Angeles County and communities such as Lawndale, Gardena, and Whittier. [3], Rohwer opened on September 18, 1942, and reached a peak population of 8,475 by March 1943. Only 2 percent of eligible men in Jerome (and in Rohwer) enlisted. It was in operation from September 18, 1942 until November 30, 1944, and held as many as 8,475 Japanese Americans forcibly evacuated from California. This monument stands at the site of a World War II Japanese internment camp near Rohwer, Arkansas (in the Mississippi River Delta). The Rohwer library was initially housed in P.S. [15], World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans, Shooting of residents by a civilian at Rohwer, U.S. National Register of Historic Places, disenfranchisement of African-American citizens, List of National Historic Landmarks in Arkansas, National Register of Historic Places listings in Desha County, Arkansas, "National Register of Historic Places Registration", https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2nihl23t9tg7uxv/AAAUYc2PkAR72q99FMxy7jGfa/14)%20SOLDIERS%20AND%20CAMPS?dl=0&preview=!SOLDIERS+AND+THE+CAMPS+(Alphabetical)+646B.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1, "Report to the President: Japanese American Internment Sites Preservation: Rohwer Relocation Center", Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, http://southernspaces.org/2008/john-yoshida-arkansas-1943, Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery, Arkansas Highway 1, Rohwer, Desha County, AR, Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Crystal City Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Fort Lincoln Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Fort Missoula Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Fort Stanton Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Seagoville Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II, Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement Study, Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, History of the National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rohwer_War_Relocation_Center&oldid=1001653658, Buildings and structures in Desha County, Arkansas, Historic American Landscapes Survey in Arkansas, Tourist attractions in Desha County, Arkansas, World War II on the National Register of Historic Places, Protected areas of Desha County, Arkansas, National Register of Historic Places in Desha County, Arkansas, Temporary populated places on the National Register of Historic Places, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox NRHP with governing body, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 20 January 2021, at 17:42. Adkins’ successor as governor, Benjamin Travis Laney Jr., was less obstinate in opposing settlement in Arkansas after taking office in January 1945, and a handful of inmates did remain in Arkansas after the war. It was constructed in 1942. Trees planted by residents have grown tall. Now all that remains of the camp … Signs identify the graded road which goes from the highway to the cemetery, where there is room to park automobiles. These Americ… Later, Sam Yada, a former Rohwer inmate who settled in Arkansas after the war, led an effort to build a new monument at the cemetery, which was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1982. A few families remained in Arkansas, because they had Today, the cemetery is the only part of the Rohwer Relocation Center that remains. Ruth never returned to visit her family in Rohwer who were released from the camp in November 1945. It was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1992. The "loyalty questionnaire," as it came to be known, created anger and confusion because of two questions: one asked Japanese Americans if they were willing to volunteer for military service (despite their mistreatment by the government and the army) and the other if they would "forswear their allegiance to the Emperor of Japan" (although many had never held such allegiance in the first place). [10] The Find A Grave website lists 25 memorials for Rohwer War Relocation Center Cemetery.[11]. (played Sulu in Star Trek) who was interned at Rohwer as a small boy. Some of the rails date back to World War II and before. Although most physical remains have been wiped from the landscape, important stories remain to be shared. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Japanese American Internment Museum, also known as the WWII Japanese American Internment Museum and the Jerome-Rohwer Interpretive Museum & Visitor Center, is a history museum in McGehee, Arkansas. A community analysis report claimed that, “It was the opinion of many Nisei here that Japanese language schooling increased at Rohwer over what it had been prior to evacuation.”. The camp site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Many Issei were more than 50 years old and prohibited from becoming American citizens. One of Kansuma’s students, June Berk, wrote that the “Japanese dance performances lifted the morale of the Issei and Nisei who had to live behind barbed wire fences.” A 1990 reunion booklet recalled that she produced shows “with such impeccable costumes, precision and staging that the viewers were virtually transported into another world and relieved for a few hours of the deplorable and futile life in a concentration camp.” Kansuma would resume her teaching in Los Angeles after the war and recently celebrated her 100th birthday. It remained largely abandoned until the War Relocation Authority, which oversaw the World War II incarceration program, took it over in 1942. Most Nisei were under 21 years old. Officially, it was presented as the registration process to obtain clearance to leave camp for work or school — and it was initially distributed only to the citizen Nisei who were eligible for leave, before being extended to the first-generation Issei — but administrators soon began to focus instead on assessing the "loyalty" of imprisoned Japanese Americans. Rohwer who were released from the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 Jerome inmates were school-age children most! Anita Nisei “ sort of felt superior to the northeast is now National! To start its own school was almost equally divided between those from the landscape important. 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