Japanese American community libraries in America's concentration camps, 1942--1946

During World War II the United States government sent 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast of the United States into several concentration camps in the interior. This dissertation examines the libraries these "internment camps," from the temporary detention centers to the English and Japanese language community libraries in the War Relocation Authority's relocation centers. In order to explain the historical development, this study reviews the experience of Issei (immigrant generation) and Nisei (second generation) Japanese Americans with public libraries in the United States before 1941. The study then focuses on libraries in the Tanforan Assembly Center and other temporary detention centers, where libraries emerged as grassroots cultural agencies; founded largely by Nisei women working with librarians on the outside. The dissertation follows the path of library development in the civilian-administered WRA camps, with an emphasis on the English-language libraries at the Manzanar and Topaz relocation centers as case studies.; Another feature of the dissertation is a chapter on the Japanese-language libraries at Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, and Topaz. It also looks at questions of censorship, and the role of libraries as agents of cultural maintenance, resistance, or control.