Archives West Finding Aid

The Frank Chin Oral History Collection consists of audio tape interviews, selected transcripts, and additional explanatory material. The interviews, all done either by Chin or Lawson Inada, are with Japanese Americans who were either native born, second generation Americans (Nisei), permanent U.S. residents born in Japan (Issei), or their family members. During World War II they became the focus of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942. The result of Roosevelt's order was to strip the Nisei of their citizenship and both groups of their constitutional rights. Under the auspices of the War Relocation Authority, the Selective Service required both groups to answer a questionnaire that, among other things, questioned their willingness to serve in the U.S. military and their willingness to repudiate their allegiance to Japan. One group of Japanese American resisters became known as the "No-No Boys" because they answered negatively to both these questions. The people interviewed in these tapes were directly or indirectly affected by these events and they offer a variety of perspectives on their significance. During World War II, roughly 120,000 adults and children of Japanese ancestry, many American citizens, were imprisoned in U.S. government run incarceration camps known euphemistically as “relocation centers".