The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was located within the Gila River Indian Reservation near the town of Sacaton, about 30 mi (48.3 km) southeast of Phoenix. With a peak population of 13,348, it became the fourth-largest city in the state, operating from May 1942 to November 16, 1945.
Doris Okada Matsui is an American politician, who has served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 7th congressional district since 2005. The district, numbered as the 5th from 2005 to 2013 and the 6th from 2013 to 2023, is based in Sacramento.
Toshio Mori was an American author, best known for being one of the earliest Japanese–American writers to publish a book of fiction.
The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County in southwestern Arizona, was the largest of the 10 American concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during World War II.
Jeanne Toyo Wakatsuki Houston was an American writer. Her writings primarily focused on ethnic identity formation in the United States of America. She is best known for her autobiographical novel Farewell to Manzanar that narrates her personal experiences in World War II incarceration camps. The book has been credited with sharing the story of the Japanese American incarceration with generations of young people.
Wakako Yamauchi was a Japanese American writer. Her plays are considered pioneering works in Asian-American theater.
Hisaye Yamamoto was an American author known for the short story collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, first published in 1988. Her work confronts issues of the Japanese immigrant experience in America, the disconnect between first and second-generation immigrants, as well as the difficult role of women in society.
Marii Hasegawa, born Kyogoku Marii, was a peace activist, known for her fifty years of work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, including serving as its president during the Vietnam War.
Sandra Akemi Sakata was an American fashion designer and fashion retailer.
Mary Tsuruko Dakusaku Tsukamoto was a Japanese American educator, cultural historian, and civil rights activist. She had taught in the Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento, California, for 26 years, and was described as having a passion to teach children how to learn from experience. The daughter of Japanese parents, she was relocated to an internment camp at Jerome, Arkansas, after the United States entered World War II. She developed a program about the internment period that is part of the California state curriculum for fifth grade history and a California Museum of History tour exhibit. She worked for Japanese American civil liberties, and played a pivotal role in the grassroots effort that led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. She also worked with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, where she developed an exhibit on internment for the Constitution's bicentennial. In March 2006, she was posthumously recognized as a National Women's History Month honoree.
Julie Otsuka is a Japanese painter and writer. She is known for drawing from her personal life to write autoethnographical historical novels about the life of Japanese Americans. In 2002 she published her first novel, When the Emperor was Divine, which is about the Japanese-American internment camps that took place in 1942-45 during World War II. The story begins in California, where she was born and raised, and it is based on Otsuka's grandfather who was arrested as a suspected spy for Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. Her novel, in 2003, received an award from the Asian American Literary Award and American Library Association Alex Award. Otsuka continued to write about her family's history and in 2011 published her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic, that takes place in the early 1900s, and it discusses the marriages of Japanese women who immigrated to the United States to marry men they knew only through photographs. These women are known as "picture brides" for this reason. During this year, she also published a short story titled "Diem Perdidi," that translates to "I have lost the day," which dives into a more personal space as it is based on her mother who had frontotemporal dementia. This short story was the beginning of her third novel published in 2022 titled, The Swimmers, which further relates her experience as the daughter of a mother with frontotemporal dementia.
Frances Kazuko Hashimoto was an American businesswoman, schoolteacher, and social activist. She was a key figure and proponent of Los Angeles' Little Tokyo neighborhood. She was the head of Mikawaya confectionery company since 1970, where Hashimoto, the inventor of mochi ice cream, also introduced the dessert to American consumers.
Clara Estelle Breed was an American librarian remembered chiefly for her support for Japanese American children during World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many residents of California who were of Japanese descent were moved to remote Japanese American internment camps where they stayed until the end of the war. Breed kept in communication with many of the children who were sent to the camps, sending reading materials and visiting them regularly.
Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz is an American artist and art educator; her paintings depict her memories of a childhood during the Japanese American internment.
Tamie Tsuchiyama, a Nisei woman, was the only Japanese-American to work full time for the Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement Study. She kept a wide-range sociological journal and ethnographic reports while she was in Poston War Relocation Center. In 1947, she worked with the U.S. government overseas operation that was run by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) as a researcher. Due to the stress from gathering information, Tsuchiyama resigned in July 1944, and sought to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Since she knew German, French and Spanish, she was assigned to Japanese language school and military intelligence assignment translating official Japanese documents.
Kiyo in Kyoto: From the Maiko House is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Aiko Koyama. It was serialized in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from December 2016 to January 2025, with its chapters collected in 28 tankōbon volumes as of December 2024. The series takes place in the Geisha district in Kyoto and follows the titular character Kiyo as she cooks up delicacies every day to support her friend Sumire and the other maiko.
Ruth Tanbara was a Japanese American community leader in Saint Paul, Minnesota. From Oregon, she was the first Japanese American graduate of what is now Oregon State University.
Michi Kobi, born Machiko Kobinata Okamoto, was an American actress.
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow is the best-known work by the Japanese-American author Amy Lee-Tai. Illustrated by Felicia Hoshino, the children's book tells the story of Mari, a young Japanese-American girl, whose family was interned in Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah during World War II. The story is set during the summertime when Mari's art class has begun and explores the perspective of a child matriculating in an internment camp. Mari wonders if anything could grow and bloom at Topaz, and finds solace and comfort through the help of her teacher, her kind parents, and a new childhood friend.
