The current library display, created by Mary Kira, details the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans were held in ten internment camps from May 1942 to January 1945. The display describes life at the various camps and features photographs by noted photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and Tōyō Miyatake, who was interned at the Manzanar relocation camp.
Miyatake, an accomplished photographer before the war, smuggled in a lens, and with a homemade camera, was able to document life inside the camps. Also featured in the display are drawings by internees and reproductions of camp newspapers, as well as information about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit composed of Americans of Japanese descent, who volunteered to fight in World War II, despite the fact that many of their relatives and friends were held in internment camps.
