Dusty Exile: Looking Back at Japanese Relocation During World War II

The signing of Executive Order No. 9066 by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, set the stage for the unconstitutional removal and wrongful incarceration of American citizens of Japanese descent and their parents and grandparents from the West Coast of the United States. Shortly after the end of World War II there began to appear a trickle of books and articles denouncing the policy of relocation or defending it. Somewhat later a steady flow or writing of another kind began to appear, a great deal of it by those who had been so shabbily treated by their government. These "reports from the camps" take many forms - diaries, reminiscences, short stories, novels, poetry, and graphic art. Any reader will be struck by the depths of anger and humiliation they reveal and the extraordinary resilience of their authors.

We know far less about the other residents of the camps. Although occasionally toughed upon, the attitudes of those Americans who administered or worked in them are rarely the focus of the relocation literature. It is the great virtue of Catherine Harris's memoir that it offers a very personal "report from the camps" about what it was like from the other side as a teacher in one of them. Her forthright account sparkles with dry wit and burns with righteous indignation by turn, shining an achingly human light on an outrageously inhuman situation
- Robert J. Smith, Golden Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies emeritus, Cornell University