Interview with John Ellington, Arkansan living near Jerome Relocation Center

John Ellington was a child when an internment camp opened near his hometown of Dermott, Arkansas. Over 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps under Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. Signed on Feb. 19, 1942, the order granted the U. S. government authority to relocate both citizens and non-citizens based on the fear that anyone with Japanese ancestry was a potential spy or saboteur. In this clip from an hour-long interview, he remembers the shock of Japanese Americans when they first arrived in rural Arkansas, which bore little resemblance to their homes on the West Coast. To curious Arkansans, California in turn seemed like a distant, foreign land. He goes on to discuss poverty of rural farmers, reactions among Arkansans to the internees, and race relations. This interview is a part of UALR's Center for Arkansas History and Culture's collection, "Life Interrupted." Every month, the Center will release a new interview clip, leading up to our exhibit on Japanese American internment in Arkansas, which will open in September 2014.