Shutting Down Japantown: The Effects of WWII Internment on Japanese American Enclaves

Martin Saavedra () and Tate Twinam

No 34510, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: During World War II, the U.S. government incarcerated all West Coast Japanese Americans in internment camps. We ask how this forced displacement affected Japanese American enclaves. Using the recently digitized 1940 and 1950 full-count censuses, we measure changes in the racial composition of neighborhoods across 14 major cities. We find that internment reduced the Japanese American population of enumeration districts within the exclusion zone by 25–50% relative to their 1940 levels, and that these individuals were replaced by African American in-movers in a nearly 1-to-1 fashion. Outside the exclusion zone, new Japanese American enclaves formed, but did not approach the scale of their historic West Coast counterparts.

JEL-codes: J15 N92 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
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