How to Plan a Concentration Camp in America

There are parallels between the Nazi concentration camp [pictured first, Bunzlau, in Bolesławiec, Poland] where my father was held and American concentration camps (also called internment camps or, in more Orwellian terms, relocation centers) [pictured second, at Lake Tule, CA].

A geographer, Prof. Robert Wilson (Syracuse), set about to explain how the War Relocation Authority picked sites for these camps. 

The story begins with the federal government’s efforts to irrigate semi-arid high deserts in parts of California, Oregon, and Washington. The point was to boost agricultural production. To accomplish this, the government had to make unproductive land fertile—and also provide homesteads (free land) to new settlers. At this time—roughly, during World War I— western states passed laws that made it illegal for Japanese immigrants (and their American-born children) to own land. As Wilson notes, “Through hard work and the support of a willing federal government, the settlers had developed a landscape where white settlers could prosper.”

Two months after Pearl Harbor, FDR ordered approximately 117,000 Japanese-Americans to be “evacuated.” Like my father’s family, Japanese Americans lost their businesses, homes, and employment.

Initially, three large camps were sited on unclaimed land that was newly irrigated. The land was unclaimed because of extreme weather, isolation, and lack of any amenities—in short, ideal for an American concentration camp where innocent Japanese could be punished for their nationality and race.

Wilson explains as follows:

“Bureau of Reclamation irrigation projects had a number of qualities that made them attractive to the WRA. Bureau projects were based away from the coasts where most Japanese Americans lived and they were outside the exclusion zones. Because unhomesteaded project land was federally owned, the WRA did not need to purchase land for the camps. 

Although isolated by some standards, federal reclamation projects were near railways or highways, which were essential to transport Japanese Americans to the camps and to supply them with provisions.

Most important, however, the internees were expected to produce vegetables, grain, meat, and other agricultural products to help support thousands of others in the camps. The WRA believed that self-sufficiency was essential so that the camps did not become a drain on the war effort. The agency also wanted to keep the internees occupied with productive work. 

In the intermountain West, farming was largely impossible without irrigation water. Bureau of Reclamation projects offered the necessary infrastructure of canals and ditches to supply water to camp farms. Given that the WRA wanted to secure building sites as quickly as possible, it was no surprise that the agency chose the Reclamation Bureau’s projects. They were relatively isolated, federally owned, and suitable for irrigation.”