''Japanese Relocation'' is a 1942 short film produced by the U.S.

Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...

and distributed by the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry. It is a propaganda film, justifying and explaining

Japanese American internment Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

on the West Coast during World War II. It is narrated by

Milton Eisenhower Milton Stover Eisenhower (September 15, 1899 – May 2, 1985) was an American academic administrator. He served as president of three major American universities: Kansas State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Johns Hopkins Univers ...

. The film starts by asserting that, while many Japanese-Americans were loyal, in early 1942 the West Coast was a potential combat zone, and the government did not know what the Japanese population would do if the US were invaded. Furthermore, the film noted that there were Japanese-American communities near militarily significant sites, such as shipyards and air bases. So, the film states, the Japanese were democratically and humanely evacuated to relocation centers in the desert. The film also states that most Japanese went voluntarily, and felt that it was a sacrifice they should make as loyal citizens.

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* * * 1942 films American World War II propaganda shorts United States government films Documentary films about the internment of Japanese Americans American black-and-white films American documentary films 1942 documentary films Japan in non-Japanese culture 1940s English-language films 1940s American films {{short-documentary-film-stub