University of Arizona

                                             Special Collections will be closed December 20, 2023 through January 1, 2024 in observance of the University Holiday break.

The Tucsonians Oral History Collection

Japanese Americans share their stories after Pearl Harbor

Black and white group photo of the Tucsonians: Japanese American WWII resisters of conscience, Sacramento, California, 1947

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and soon afterward, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the mass removal of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast to incarceration camps located further within the United States interior.

During this time, 1941 to 1943, Americans of Japanese ancestry were prohibited from serving in the US military. However, in 1944 the government re-instituted the draft for all Nisei, first generation Japanese born in America, including those in camps.

Listen to our collection of oral histories from several of the Japanese American resisters of conscience who served sentences at the Catalina Federal Prison (renamed the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site in 1999) during WWII. The Tucsonians Oral History Project Collection also includes photos, audiotapes, and transcripts of interviews.

"Tucsonian" is the self-given name the group of American men of Japanese ancestry adopted while imprisoned in the Catalina Federal Prison on Mount Lemmon during the 1940s for resisting the draft. The Tucsonians and all wartime draft resisters were pardoned in 1947. 

Date:
Dec 2, 2022
Location:
Online
Related collections:
The Tucsonians Oral History Project Collection

Land Acknowledgement

We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.