War Relocation Authority publication about "resettlement."

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So reads a pamphlet entitled New Neighbors Among Us, published by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the agency in charge of the Japanese American incarceration camps. Government officials realized from the outset of the mass removal that they would need to release the detained Japanese Americans into free society or take on managing a permanently dependent population.

In spring 1942, the WRA and its director Dillon Myer began to initiate regulations for releasing "unquestionably" loyal Japanese Americans from the camps. (Some had already gone out as temporary field workers or for college.) The initial leave program was extremely cumbersome, requiring applicants to fill out copious paperwork and obtain security clearance in Washington, D.C. Before they could be freed, detainees had to show that nothing in their record made them a potential threat to national security; they had to find a community that would not object to their presence; and they needed to obtain certain employment and a place to live. But the bureaucratic process took so long that job and housing offers often vanished.

Detainee leaving Manzanar incarceration camp, California, 1943.

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The conditions for obtaining what the WRA called "indefinite leave" favored young Nisei, who were urged to be good ambassadors for their people. As Nisei men and women left for college, military service, or jobs in the east, the demographics in the camps shifted toward the elderly and the very young. The Issei who managed to leave the camps had even more difficulty finding work than their children did. Countless former business owners lost dignity by having to take low-paying work as domestics.

WRA officials encouraged those Nisei who obtained security clearances to move to the Midwest and East Coast. They believed that scattering Japanese Americans among white inland communities would force them to "Americanize" and thus break up the West Coast Japantowns that existed before the war. The WRA warned released detainees not to speak Japanese or even congregate in their new communities. Because the released Japanese Americans were sent to locations far from their homes and support networks, the already difficult task of making their way became even more daunting.

Letter from Mayor LaGuardia of New York, April 21, 1944.

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Some cities and states expressed open hostility toward accepting former detainees, and longtime foes of Asian immigrants like the American Legion vocally opposed the presence of any Japanese Americans anywhere. The mass removal and detention had played right into the hands of anti-Japanese forces. By declaring all people of Japanese descent so potentially dangerous they had to be locked up, far from other Americans, the government had strengthened fears and opposition. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York (himself the son of Italian immigrants), argued, "If it was necessary to evacuate them from their homes originally and put them in a concentration camp, what justification is there for turning them loose in Eastern cities at this time?"

In an attempt to smooth the reintroduction of the detainees into free society, the WRA produced public-relations photographs and pamphlets like New Neighbors Among Us, which assures readers that industrious Nisei had "dropped into scattered communities without causing an economic or social ripple…most are American citizens, educated in American schools…speaking English well and Japanese poorly if at all, thinking and acting like other Americans."

Chicago became a primary destination, in part because of the labor force shortage. The first official WRA "resettlers" arrived on June 12, 1942; a year later there were 1,500 in the city. Relocation offices opened in Chicago, Cleveland, Little Rock, Salt Lake City, New York City, Kansas City, and Denver. Groups like the Society of Friends (Quakers), the YMCA, Salvation Army, and other sympathetic volunteers assisted Japanese Americans exiting the camps by helping to allay public fear and secure jobs and housing.

WRA resettlement image, 1944, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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By 1943, the WRA stepped up efforts to move people out of the camps, as the military necessity justification faded and legal challenges to the incarceration neared the Supreme Court. To encourage frightened and economically strapped people to leave the camps, the WRA published photos and booklets depicting Japanese Americans comfortably settled in Midwestern homes. Sleek refrigerators and shiny bathtubs appear in WRA photos to tempt detainees long deprived of such comforts.

The post-incarceration experiences of Japanese Americans interviewed by Densho vary considerably. Several report that they encountered no discrimination, and that Midwesterners they met in Minnesota or Ohio towns were kind. Others recall being forced to work long hours for low pay, or being turned away from apartments with "for rent" signs when the landlords saw their Asian faces.

Peggie Nishimura Bain had great difficulty finding housing after leaving camp.

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Peggie Nishimura Bain became depressed and desperate as she and her teenaged daughter searched for an apartment on the south side of Chicago. They had access only to the worst accommodations (Peggie will not forget the bedbugs and cockroaches). Finally a Jewish friend invited them stay with him, but the landlady ordered them out.

The WRA did not offer to find anyplace. They give you an address and they say, "Well, you go and see if you can rent the place." And they kept calling me because they wanted to take a picture of me so they could send it back to the camp saying what a wonderful place Chicago was and how nice it was to be out and relocated. So I told them the next time they called me, I said, "I'm being thrown out of the apartment, so come and take a picture of that." They never bothered me after that.

Matsue Watanabe was sponsored out of camp to work for a family.

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Matsue Watanabe describes her work experience in the Chicago suburb of Evanston after her siblings helped obtain a sponsor for her:

Most of the times, yes. You would work as a domestic for them to earn your room and board. And they usually pay you some extra. Most of my friends that came out from camp ... they were working for three dollars a week, and they would have to baby-sit quite late at night and then do their studies after that. Other people that I know currently, they did the same things in Ohio and other places. But I was very fortunate because I had a family that didn't make me baby-sit, and she paid me ten dollars a week. I was a rich lady.

Nobu Suzuki left camp for Spokane, Washington.

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Back in Washington State, Nobu Suzuki tells how a man refused to sell them gas for their drive to Spokane when they left the Minidoka, Idaho, incarceration camp. And she shares a story about a vigilante group that tried to drive her family out of the house that the Quakers helped them buy:

The Friends found this nice big brick house with a plate glass window in the front room. One night, this real estate agent from the area came by and threw a big rock through it, and then boasted in the beer parlor that he was going to come and force us out of this house. A Catholic priest heard about it and he let us know. And we told our friends about it, and they came that night and were sitting in the living room. They were all white people. When this gang that this man gathered from the beer parlor came walking down the street, we could hear them. But when he came to the door, it was opened by one of our friends. He invited him in and said, "Let's talk about this." Of course, that wasn't what he wanted. But he came in and looked around. He didn't say much, excepting that he didn't want us there and that he had a crowd of people outside who didn't want us there either. And then he left. He was grumbling but they all went away.

Nobu and her family felt safe in their nice big brick house, confident that most of the neighbors would accept them. Resolutely turning their backs on the dark years of detention, Nobu and thousands of other Japanese Americans set about rebuilding their lives on the other side of the fence.