Visiting what remains of the Japanese prison camp Rohwer is a sobering and eye-opening experience. A few months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. the power to incarcerate Japanese Americans. In the months that followed, approximately 122,000 men, women, and children were forcibly moved to “assembly centers,” becoming prisoners of the U.S. government and having their possessions and wealth taken away. Two of those camps were in the state of Arkansas: Rohwer, in Desha County, and…
