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In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that forcibly removed and incarcerated over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—two-thirds of them U.S.-born citizens—in concentration camps.
The trauma of displacement, incarceration and family separation continues to shape lives today.
Since the war, former incarcerees have been making pilgrimages to their camps to find healing and closure. This project documents their journeys and explores the question:
What does it mean to be American?
These Japanese American families share how they have defined belonging here in America—behind barbed wire.
The Camps America Built is a project facilitated by photographer Haruka Sakaguchi about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. It documents Japanese American families as they make pilgrimages to the 10 concentration camps across the country to reflect on this dark chapter in American history.
Learn the History
Explore the Camps
Meet the Families
Teach the History
After Pearl Harbor, Keige Kaku was discharged from the U.S. Army, imprisoned in two concentration camps, and deported after refusing to declare “loyalty” to the United States. Eighty years later, Keige’s son Henry embarks on a pilgrimage to retrace his father’s footsteps and confronts the question: What does it mean to be a “loyal” American?
This project is dedicated to former incarcerees and their descendants, who revisit the past so we can better understand the present.