Japanese Internment, 1942

1942, Little Tokyo.  View of the north side of East 1st Street, which will soon be empty as Mayor Bowron reeported the evacuation plan for Little Tokyo residents.  City Hall hovers in the background and some businesses, such as the Nelson Hotel, Chop Suey Cafe, Nanka Shu Hotel, Hori Bros., and the Rainer Cafe, are visible on the street, which reveals various cars and some Pacific Electric streetcar tracks.  Dated March 21, 1942.  The full caption reads: Los Angeles, California.  Street scene in Little Tokyo near Los Angeles Civic Center, prior to evacuation of residents of Japanese ancestry.  Evacuees will be assigned to War Relocation Authority centers for the duration.  

1942, Shops for rent on a deserted 1st Street in Little Tokyo on June 18, 1942, following the evacuation of Japanese American residents to internment camps. (Herald-Examiner Collection) https://buff.ly/4dhjHgd. 

1942, Vacant and deserted business houses along 1st Street after the evacuation of Japanese people during World War II.  Thanks to Water & Power.

1942, View showing Japanese men, women, and children boarding trains and buses as they started their journey at the old Santa Fe Station to Manzanar Internment Camp in Owens Valley.

The Japanese American internment during World War II affected about 110,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the Pacific coast of the United States. The U.S. government ordered the internment in 1942, shortly after Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally as a geographic matter: all who lived on the West Coast were interned, while in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans comprised over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were interned. 62% of the internees were American citizens.^*

1942, Japanese Americans arrive at the interment staging center at the Santa Anita Park racetrack. 

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