New Mexico Internment Camp History

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After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which thrust the United States into the horrors of World War II, American’s opinions of any Japanese person, whether they were a descendant or fully Japanese, drastically changed. In one of the most discriminatory actions in modern American history, the U.S. government forced thousands of Japanese-Americans out of their own homes and into internment camps for a large portion of World War II. The government placed these camps across the United States, including New Mexico. The most interesting parts of the history of internment camps in New Mexico are the internment camps in Lordsburg, Santa Fe, and the Santa Fe internment camp riot. In the days after December 7, 1941, the U.S. Wartime …show more content…
government also built an internment camp near New Mexico’s capital of Santa Fe. Like the Lordsburg camp, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government started to create plans to build an internment camp near Santa Fe. In February of 1942, the U.S. Department of Justice acquired an 80-acre portion of the New Mexico State Penitentiary. Within this 80-acre site lay a Civilian Conservation Corps camp built in 1933 to house 450 men. Since most of the soon-to-be internment camp already included utilities and housing, construction workers finished expanding the camp within one month of the Department of Justice acquiring the land. On March 14, 1942, the Santa Fe internment camp starting accepting its first wave of 826 Japanese-Americans. Of these newly arrived internees, most transferred to relocation camps, and some went to prisoner-of-war camps after a series of short trials to discover the extent of loyalty and cooperation to either the U.S. or Japan. By September 24, 1942, the Japanese-American internees vacated the camp. For the next five months, the camp housed German and Italian nationals rather than Japanese-American internees. However, February 1943, the U.S. Army decided to transfer Japanese-American internees back to the Department of Justice, and military officers started to update the Santa Fe camp in order to house more internees. For the most part, the internees at the Santa Fe camp remained at peace …show more content…
Like with other internment camps, complaints and secrecy among the Japanese-American internees was common, but after one drastic incident, all thoughts of rebellion immediately ceased. As a second wave of Japanese-Americans traveled to the Santa Fe internment camp, many of the new internees came from the Tule Lake Segregation Center in Northern California. For the most part, many of these “Tuleans” quickly assimilated into their new way of life in Santa Fe and managed to avoid conflict with their American military guards. However, some of these Tuleans refused to accept American citizenship and swore their allegiance to Japan. Part of the Hoshi Dan movement, which started in California and included Japanese-Americans who sympathized with Japan, 366 of these Tuleans stirred up trouble once they arrived at the Santa Fe internment camp. At first, these Tuleans mainly cursed at their American guards and disobeyed several insignificant rules. However, as time went on, these Tuleans started to grow increasingly rebellious. In March of 1945, several Tuleans participated in a confrontation with the American guards after they refused to surrender their sweatshirts covered with references to the Japanese Rising Sun. As a result, the American military
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