Japanese Injustice In Arkansas

Japanese Injustice Throughout history, many groups of people have come to Arkansas for a variety of reasons. Some people have come seeking land, freedom, or other opportunities. Other groups of people were forced to come to these state. Some groups have settled in the state and lent their culture to the region while other groups were here for a while, then moved on to other regions of the United States. One group that came to Arkansas by force was the Japanese. These people were forced into internment camps in Jerome or Rohwer, and soon left when everything was over. The early Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii around the early 1900’s, due to economic issues in west Japan. Immigrants began working as cheap replacements for Chinese workers …show more content…
Japanese inmates introduced new sports, teachings, religion and agricultural techniques to the state of Arkansas. Some of the new sports that were introduced were judo and Kendo. Teaching was very important for Japanese people. Jerome and Rohwer constructed a school for every 36 blocks in the camps (Densho Encyclopedia). Most of the Japanese immigrants weren’t Christian; the Japanese introduced Buddhism to Arkansas. The religion impacted the whole relocation camp, that Jerome made the first Young Buddhist’s Association (Densho Encyclopedia). Finally, the Japanese inmates introduced new methods for irrigations for plantations. The Japanese work so hard in the plantation, schools, and even the stores in the camp, that the Jerome and Rohwer administrators issued day passes for inmates to visit neighboring towns to shop, for school outings, sport events, and other purposes (Densho Encyclopedia). Once out, Japanese inmates could go shopping or visit places, but with the fear of the Jim Crow laws. In one incident a Japanese inmate gets shot when he was eating at a local cafe (Densho Encyclopedia). After this incident people Japanese people feared of leaving the internment …show more content…
Three months before the end of WWII Jerome shuts down its doors. Making all the inmates free or transferred to Rohwer. Then three months later all the internment camps shut down their doors. All the Japanese inmates that were released returned to their homes in the United States, which mostly all of them were located in California. When the inmates returned to their homes, they found what they feared. There homes and business were vandalized. After the end of WWII and the closing of all relocation camps in the United States, several of the apartment buildings were sold to the public, or destroyed, and the land was used for farming