It Cannot Be Helped: Racial Stratification in Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas During World War II

UNCA Author/Contributor (non-UNCA co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Amanda Glenn-Bradley (Creator)
Institution
University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA )
Web Site: http://library.unca.edu/
Advisor
Daniel Pierce

Abstract: Between March 1942 and 1945 the War Relocation Authority (WRA) forced over one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans into internment camps hastily constructed across the country. Small communities outside of the rural towns of McGehee and Denson, Arkansas located in the historically racially charged Delta housed two of these internment camps: WRA Internment Camps Jerome and Rohwer. At these two internment camps Japanese-Americans from the far West entered into Jim Crow era Arkansas and into a hotbed of established racial stratification. This research project examined the modern history of this particular geographic region and placed the liminal status of the Japanese-American internees into perspective through analysis of oral histories, newspaper articles, and statistical data. The established racial hierarchy in Delta shaped the way that the local population treated and perceived the Japanese-American internees and conversely impacted the way that the Japanese-American internees perceived the local population.

Additional Information

Publication
Other
Language: English
Date: 2015
Keywords
World War II, Japanese-American, internees, WRA Internment Camps

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