For the camps in Arkansas, the humidity was a constant as they were built in swamp land. The winters brought freezing cold and snow in other regions. The weather was also unusual to many, as the summers brought extreme winds with dust storms in some areas, as well as blistering heat from 90 degrees and above. Food was served in the mess hall, Army-style in shifts by block and by age, causing a break down the normal family structure which had been important part of daily life in the community. The showers weren’t much better, using only cold water, and these, too, had almost nonexistent partitions. The bathrooms were in separate buildings and were shared, with toilets put into rows only a few feet apart and back to back, with no partitions. A single potbelly stove was also put into each of these rooms and would serve as the only source of heating. Each of these rooms would house a family of five or more, and in some cases eight or more people if it were a “bachelors” room. These barracks were roughly 20 feet by 100 feet long, split into rooms of about 20 by 20 feet, depending on the families assigned to the specific barrack. Old Army cots from the First World War were used for bedding, with blankets to match, and straw-filled mattresses. The tar paper barracks were hastily thrown together in only a matter of weeks, with gaping holes in between the sides, roofs, and flooring. Life in the camps was a struggle for all. As a result many families sold their homes, cars, belongings, and even pets, farms, and stores for next to nothing. These exclusion orders began with the infamous line, “Instructions to all persons of Japanese Ancestry…” With anywhere from 48 hours to two weeks’ notice, Japanese Americans across the West Coast were told to pack their belongings, and report to designated “assembly centers” with only what they could carry. ![]() Between March and August of 1942, the Army would issue 108 different Civilian Exclusion Orders to remove all Japanese Americans from the West Coast. and would later unapologetically claim to be the architect of the incarceration alongside General DeWitt. General DeWitt’s second in command, Karl Bendetsen, was appointed as the head of the W.C.C.A. The Army designated the newly formed Wartime Civilian Control Administration (W.C.C.A.) to oversea the removal process. The Japanese American community of Bainbridge Island in Washington was told they had 6 days before they would be “evacuated” to the newly constructed Manzanar Relocation Center. 4, the Army also issued its first Civilian Exclusion Order, on March 24, 1942. Several days prior to Public Proclamation No.
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