The rounding and imprisonment of Japanese Americans during the World War II years due to the paranoia and racism among white Americans, led to not only the disappearance and removal of a race from their home and social structures, but also the internment of other races due to familial ties, such as couples in mixed marriages. I found it incredible that the U.S. government chose to uproot these people from their foundations, jobs, homes, and culture without further thought of the consequences once the war was over. Segregation gave Japanese Americans further autonomy to their own hierarchy within the camps and provided a space that intensified gender relations such as marriage and queer relations, unintended by the government. Japanese American authors have commented how the experience made them feel emasculated, powerless and targeted based off of their biological features. I thought it was interesting how there was little discussion of the after effects of the camps and their (re)integration with “white” America. Did “white” America truly feel that the masses of Japanese Americans were going to rise as if a call to arms was issued by the Emperor once Pearl Harbor happened? And if so, how did this function as an economic strategy by the government, by relocating thousands of people and supporting them for years out in the desert? Was the (re)integration met with open arms by the rest of America or still displayed apprehensions and racist attitudes intensified by the governmental xenophobia?

Life in the Internment camps exposed Japanese Americans to intensified gender and racial divisions and new opportunities.

Lange, Adams, and Miyatake photograph the Internment camps using different strategies to represent the body and expose the double alienation felt by prisoners.

Kozol argues that the pictures respond to the hysterical racism and economic demands by whites, and the need to control the xenophobia itself unleashed.