A Bitter Legacy

This feature documentary examines the history of the World War II American incarceration prisons for 122, 000 people of Japanese ancestry within the so called “War Relocation Administration” with a focus on the “Citizen Isolation Centers”. United States citizens who were deemed “troublemakers” by the government for speaking up or questioning the unlawfulness of this imprisonment, were sent to almost, secret prisons in Camp Tule Lake, California, Moab, Utah and Leupp, Arizona, places now considered precursors to Guantanamo Bay largely because the manner in which these men were “rendered”, and treated in such harsh and sometimes, brutal manners. In investigating the forces at work behind the creation of these citizen isolation prisons, we come to learn of their importance within the entire bitter legacy of wartime incarceration here within the country and how they were attempts to control any uprising or dissent within the entire population of 122, 000 people of Japanese ancestry.