Songs of Incarceration

Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War Two demand that the federal government take account of their suffering and make reparations.

At the end of 1944, the U.S. government lifted the order barring people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Many people freed from camp faced racism and poverty as they tried to rebuild their lives. Some found that leaving camp was even harder than being sent there.

Two men who were imprisoned at Heart Mountain as boys remember their time in camp and how the experience shaped them as adults.

The Japanese Americans who protested their incarceration and defied the pressure to prove their patriotism.

A handmade pin tells an improbable love story from camp.

More than 33,000 Japanese American men and women served in World War II. They fought as soldiers in Europe, and as translators in the Pacific.

It was a time to persevere in the face of the unendurable, and to do so with dignity. The Japanese term for that is Gaman.

Kishi Bashi, the renowned alt-rock musician, has been improvising music in places connected to the Japanese American incarceration. That includes the top of Heart Mountain, in Wyoming. Hear Kishi Bashi climb the mountain and perform a song that is part of his "songfilm" project, Omoiyari.

In the first months of incarceration, Japanese Americans were hit with the humiliating conditions of camp life. The U.S. government denied that people of Japanese ancestry living in the "assembly centers" were prisoners, but the first summer in these camps proved otherwise.

Musicians Julian Saporiti and Erin Aoyama perform songs about the incarceration in a former barrack at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. With a special appearance from Kishi Bashi.