After December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which selected ten sites in which to imprison more than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, over half of whom were American citizens. Two of these camps were in the Arkansas Delta, one at Rohwer in Desha County, and the other at Jerome in sections of Chicot and Drew counties. Over 16,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in these two camps between October 1942 and November 1945.
Hazel Linam Retherford was born on January 27, 1906. During World War II, she was a teacher at both the Jerome and Rohwer Japanese relocation centers in Arkansas, eventually helping to close both centers. She later went to Washington, District of Columbia, to complete War Relocation Authority records on the camps.
Description
Postcard sent from Toshimi Kurisu at one of the Japanese relocation camps in Arizona to Hazel Retherford in Arkansas.
Physical Description
Postcard, 3" x 5"
Subjects
Evacuations; Military assistance; Military camps; Camps; Refugee camps; War; Japanese; Japanese Americans; World War II (1939-1945); Internment camps; Relocation camps;
Related Resources
Amon Guy Thompson papers, MG04582 - MG04586; Austin Smith papers, 1942–1945, MG04350; Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, MG01299; Community Analysis Reports and Community Analysis Trend Reports of the War Relocation Authority, 1942-1946, MG03846 - MG03847; Japanese Camp papers, MG03848 - MG03869
You Fought Prejudice and Won - Japanese-American Internment Camps in Arkansas
Publisher
Arkansas State Archives
Preferred Citation
Postcard, Toshimi Kurisu to Hazel Retherford, Hazel Retherford Papers, MS.00643, Box 1, File 1, Item 8, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Rights and Usage
Use and reproduction of images held by the Arkansas State Archives without prior written permission is prohibited. For information on reproducing images held by the Arkansas State Archives, please call 501-682-6900 or email at state.archives@arkansas.gov.
