NIE and Densho: The WWII Odyssey of King County's Japanese Americans

Sponsored Newspapers In Education Content | APRIL 12, 2015 7 Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry. Starting in 1945, restrictions against Japanese Americans returning to the West Coast were lifted. At last, Seattle’s Japanese Americans could come home. While many who left camp in 1945 continued to leave for places outside the West Coast, just over half who had left Seattle decided to return. While only 713 had returned by June 1945 and 2,000 by mid-September, around 4,400—63 percent of the prewar population—had returned by March 1946 and 5,778 by 1950. The Seattle they returned to was a different place from the one they had left. Lured by the wartime surge in industrial jobs in the region—especially in the forestry and ship- and aircraft-building industries—thousands of workers had flocked to Seattle, and the population grew by a third between 1940 and the end of 1943. Among the newcomers were African Americans, many of whom took up residence in former Japanese American neighborhoods vacated during the war. Japanese American returnees faced many problems, ranging from continuing racism that had grown even worse in the war years to difficulties in finding housing that had been exacerbated by the population growth. Akiko remembered that “when we went looking for housing… we found all these barriers…. Discrimination, where you can live, and this and that.” Some were forced to live in hostels where conditions were barely better than the concentration camps they had left. Destination data based on information taken from the Minidoka Final Accountability Roster Top 10 destinations for Seattleites leaving Minidoka in 1945 1. Seattle, Washington 1670 2. Chicago, Illinois 250 3. Spokane, Washington 169 4. New York, New York 109 5. Salt Lake City, Utah 89 6. Ontario, Oregon 52 7. Denver, Colorado 47 8. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 42 9. Detroit, Michigan 35 10. Minneapolis, Minnesota 34 WA 2,121 MN 146 MI 143 NY 188 OR 150 IL 635 CO 138 ID 574 UT 340 CA 188 Map showing by state where Seattleites resettled after leaving Minidoka RETURNING TO SEATTLE