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Poston Internment Camp | |
|---|---|
Detainee camp | |
 Painting of the Poston Internment Camp painted by Japanese American Tom Tanaka while interned | |
  Poston Internment Camp Location of the camp in the state of Arizona  Poston Internment Camp Poston Internment Camp (the United States) | |
| Coordinates: 33°59′15″N 114°24′4″W / 33.98750°N 114.40111°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Arizona |
| Opened | 1942 |
| Closed | 1945 |
| Founded by | War Relocation Authority |
| Population (September, 1942) | |
| • Total | 17,814 |
The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County (now in La Paz County) in southwestern Arizona, was the largest (in terms of area) of the 10 American concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during World War II.
The site was composed of three separate camps arranged in a chain from north to south, three miles from each other. Internees named the camps Roasten, Toastin, and Dustin, based on their desert locations.[1] The Colorado River was about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the west, outside of the camp perimeter.
Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, over the objections of the Tribal Council, who refused to be a part of doing to others what had been done to their tribe. Army commanders and officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, though, overruled the council, seeing the opportunity to improve infrastructure and agricultural development (which would remain after the war and aid the reservation's permanent population) on the War Department budget and with thousands of "volunteers".[2]
The combined peak population of the Poston camps was over 17,000, mostly from Southern California. At the time, Poston was the third-largest "city" in Arizona. It was built by Del Webb, who later became famous building Sun City, Arizona, and other retirement communities. The Poston facility was named after Charles Debrille Poston, a government engineer who established the Colorado River Reservation in 1865 and planned an irrigation system to serve the needs of the Indian people who were to live there.[3]
A single fence surrounded all three camps, and the site was so remote that authorities considered building guard towers to be unnecessary.[1] The thousands of internees and staff passed through the barbed-wire perimeter at Poston I, which was where the main administration center was located.
Poston was a subject of a sociological research by Alexander H. Leighton, published in his 1945 book, The Governing of Men. As Time wrote, "After 15 months at Arizona's vast Poston Relocation Center as a social analyst, Commander Leighton concluded that many an American simply fails to remember that U.S. Japanese are human beings."[4]
- ^ a b Fujita-Rony, Thomas Y. "Poston (Colorado River)". Densho Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 2014-08-07. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
- ^ Mastropolo, Frank (2008-02-19). "An Internment Camp Within an Internment Camp". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2015-12-27. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
- ^ Burton, J.; Farrell, M.; Lord, F.; Lord, R. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites: "Poston Relocation Center Archived 2012-10-05 at the Wayback Machine" (National Park Service, 2000). Retrieved 2014-08-07.
- ^ Time Magazine (1942-06-25). "Japs Are Human". Time. Archived from the original on 2008-06-08. Retrieved 2008-01-20.