After the camps closed, families were each provided with a one-way train ticket to a place of their choosing, and $25 per person.

“Government leaders, anxious to avert potential racial violence by hostile West Coast whites, actively discouraged Japanese Americans from returning to their prewar homes...Officials from President Roosevelt launched plans to disperse the [internees] in small groups through the country in order to dissolve their distinctive ethnic characteristics and promote integration.”

Although former internees were allowed to return to the West Coast, the arrival of returnees was slow at first. Fears of impending violence and discrimination towards Japanese Americans on the West Coast spread amongst internees, causing many to feel apprehensive about reintegrating into mainstream society and returning to the West Coast.

Many families did make the trip directly back to where they came from, hoping to recover some semblance of their old lives and were often confronted with more racism, and vandalized property. Other families moved to places that were soliciting Japanese Americans for labor, including frozen food packing plants, and agricultural spaces.

And yet, despite the arduous challenge that Japanese Americans faced upon returning to the West Coast, they persisted. Even though the federal government intended to break up concentrations of the Japanese American population on the West Coast, the population nearly returned to its prewar numbers.

The Takaragawa Family

"My family, the Shitamotos (my maternal great-grandmother), her daughter Miyoko and husband Yutaka Takaragawa, originally from California, chose to move instead to Denver to start a sewing school. The Shitamotos ran a sewing school and my grandfather took random jobs, such as a short-order cook in order to make ends meet. After a few years they moved back to Los Angeles." - Stephanie Takaragawa

The Munemitsu Family

While they were incarcerated, the Munemitsus leased their land to the Mendez family, who were involved in the Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County, et al, court case from 1946 to 1947, which desegregated Mexican-only schools in Orange County and later influenced state and federal desegregation policies. After the war, the Munemitsu family returned to their farm in Westminster, allowing the Mendez family to finish the terms of their lease, while the Munemitsus lived in the laborer cottages. They even offered temporary housing on their land to fellow, formerly incarcerated Japanese, giving them a chance to start over after the camps