[JAPANESE INTERNMENT]. An archive of material from a Japanese couple that were incarcerated at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California, 1942-44.

Comprising of: Manzanar Adult English Class certificate (24 May 1943); Manzanar yearbook, 1943-44, profusely inscribed and signed throughout by almost all of the “inmates”; 3 large panoramic photographs of the internment camp; two American alien identification passports (“certificate of identification”) dated February 1942, both with mounted portrait photographs of the Japanese couple; both of their Imperial Japanese Government passports with mounted portrait photographs; an inspection card (3 October 1922); an “Alien’s Travel Permit” (3 September 1945) to Chicago from the internment camp; another “Alien Enemy Permit to Travel” (20 January 1942) for business only; a certificate of completion for an Americanization Program in Chicago (15 January 1955); Certificate of Naturalization (4 September 1956); and a death certificate (accidental burns at Fire Stone Tire Co., Chicago, IL, 1959).

In 1922, Koji and Masai Watanabe emigrated to California. During WWII, the couple was interned at Manzanar concentration camp in 1942, where they remained until 1945 once the war was over. Manzanar was one of ten American concentration camps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt created after signing Executive Order 9066 which authorized the force of removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast. The camp held well over 10,000 inmates at its peak. After release, the Watanabe’s would seek work, eventually settling in Chicago.