After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the United States into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was lobbied to sign Executive Order 9066, which authorized military leaders to declare the West Coast a military zone from which persons considered "a threat to security" could be excluded.
Some military leaders opposed this action, and historians have concluded that the order was based largely on local exaggerated fears and xenophobia, plus economic competition.
Officials classified most Japanese Americans as potential threats, including native-born citizens.
They forced the "evacuation" of 120,000 Japanese Americans; whole families were rounded up and deported to concentration camps newly constructed in isolated areas of the country's interior.

The Jerome War Relocation Camp was located in Southeast Arkansas in Chicot and Drew counties.
It was one of two American concentration camps in the Arkansas Delta, the other being at Rohwer, 27 miles (43 km) north of Jerome.
The Jerome site was situated on 10,054 acres (4,069 ha) of tax-delinquent land in the marshy delta of the Mississippi River's flood plain, which had been purchased in the 1930s during Depression relief efforts by the Farm Security Administration.
Despite initial resistance from Governor Homer Adkins – who agreed to allow the camps only after exacting a federal guarantee that the Japanese American inmates would be watched by armed white guards and removed from the state at the end of the war – the War Relocation Authority acquired the land in 1942.
Along with other Southern states, Arkansas had legal racial segregation and Jim Crow laws; they had already disenfranchised most African Americans in the state at the turn of the century.

The A. J. Rife Construction Company of Dallas, Texas, working under the supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers, built the Jerome camp at a cost of $4,703,347.
The architect, Edward F. Neild of Shreveport, Louisiana, also designed the camp at Rohwer in Desha County.

Jerome was divided into 50 blocks, which were surrounded by a barbed wire fence, a patrol road, and seven watchtowers.
Administrative and community spaces such as schools, offices and the hospital were separate from the 36 residential or barracks blocks.
These consisted of twelve barracks divided into several "apartments", in addition to communal dining and sanitary facilities.
Approximately 250 to 300 individuals lived in each block.
The only entrances were from the main highway on the west and at the back of the camp to the east.
The camp was not finished when its first inmates began to arrive from California assembly centers.
These early arrivals were forced to work on construction of their incarceration quarters.

This was the last center to open and the first to close; it operated for 634 days – the fewest of any of the American concentration camps.
The constant movement of camp populations into and out of facilities has made accurate statistics difficult.
As of January 1943, the camp had a population of 7,932 people, and the following month Jerome reached its peak at nearly 8,500.
Most prisoners had lived in Los Angeles or farmed in and around Fresno and Sacramento before the war, but some ten percent of Jerome's population was relocated from Hawai'i.
Fourteen percent were over the age of sixty, and there were 2,483 school-age children in the camp, thirty-one percent of the total population.
Thirty-nine percent of the residents were under the age of nineteen.
Sixty-six percent were American citizens, having been born in the United States, and were known as Nisei.
The Issei, or first-generation, immigrant parents and grandparents had been prohibited by US law from obtaining citizenship, along with other East Asians, were officially referred to as "aliens".

The camp was closed at the end of June 1944 and adapted as a German prisoner-of-war camp, renamed as Camp Dermott.
Due to questions about their loyalty due to answers to the confusing loyalty questionnaire, many Japanese American male inmates had already been transferred to the Tule Lake segreg
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the United States into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was lobbied to sign Executive Order 9066, which authorized military leaders to declare the West Coast a military zone from which persons considered "a threat to security" could be excluded. Some military leaders opposed this action, and historians have concluded that the order was based largely on local exaggerated fears and xenophobia, plus economic competition. Officials classified most Japanese Americans as potential threats, including native-born citizens. They forced the "evacuation" of 120,000 Japanese Americans; whole families were rounded up and deported to concentration camps newly constructed in isolated areas of the country's interior.
The Jerome War Relocation Camp was located in Southeast Arkansas in Chicot and Drew counties. It was one of two American concentration camps in the Arkansas Delta, the other being at Rohwer, 27 miles (43 km) north of Jerome. The Jerome site was situated on 10,054 acres (4,069 ha) of tax-delinquent land in the marshy delta of the Mississippi River's flood plain, which had been purchased in the 1930s during Depression relief efforts by the Farm Security Administration. Despite initial resistance from Governor Homer Adkins – who agreed to allow the camps only after exacting a federal guarantee that the Japanese American inmates would be watched by armed white guards and removed from the state at the end of the war – the War Relocation Authority acquired the land in 1942. Along with other Southern states, Arkansas had legal racial segregation and Jim Crow laws; they had already disenfranchised most African Americans in the state at the turn of the century.
The A. J. Rife Construction Company of Dallas, Texas, working under the supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers, built the Jerome camp at a cost of $4,703,347. The architect, Edward F. Neild of Shreveport, Louisiana, also designed the camp at Rohwer in Desha County.
Jerome was divided into 50 blocks, which were surrounded by a barbed wire fence, a patrol road, and seven watchtowers. Administrative and community spaces such as schools, offices and the hospital were separate from the 36 residential or barracks blocks. These consisted of twelve barracks divided into several "apartments", in addition to communal dining and sanitary facilities. Approximately 250 to 300 individuals lived in each block. The only entrances were from the main highway on the west and at the back of the camp to the east. The camp was not finished when its first inmates began to arrive from California assembly centers. These early arrivals were forced to work on construction of their incarceration quarters.
This was the last center to open and the first to close; it operated for 634 days – the fewest of any of the American concentration camps. The constant movement of camp populations into and out of facilities has made accurate statistics difficult. As of January 1943, the camp had a population of 7,932 people, and the following month Jerome reached its peak at nearly 8,500. Most prisoners had lived in Los Angeles or farmed in and around Fresno and Sacramento before the war, but some ten percent of Jerome's population was relocated from Hawai'i. Fourteen percent were over the age of sixty, and there were 2,483 school-age children in the camp, thirty-one percent of the total population. Thirty-nine percent of the residents were under the age of nineteen. Sixty-six percent were American citizens, having been born in the United States, and were known as Nisei. The Issei, or first-generation, immigrant parents and grandparents had been prohibited by US law from obtaining citizenship, along with other East Asians, were officially referred to as "aliens".
The camp was closed at the end of June 1944 and adapted as a German prisoner-of-war camp, renamed as Camp Dermott. Due to questions about their loyalty due to answers to the confusing loyalty questionnaire, many Japanese American male inmates had already been transferred to the Tule Lake segreg
Jerome War Relocation Center