Louis Fiset
Dr. Louis Fiset is an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has published two books and numerous peer reviewed journal essays on the Nikkei experience in World War II. With a current appointment in UW’s Department of Medical Education, Dr. Fiset is the curriculum director for DENTEX, a two-year training program for Alaska Natives (e.g., Eskimos, Aleuts) to provide dental care for fellow villagers in the most remote regions of the Alaska bush.
Update September 2008
Stories from This Author
The Assembly Centers: An Introduction
Sept. 16, 2008 • Louis Fiset
On March 30, 1942, 257 Nikkei residents of Bainbridge Island, Washington, walked onto a cross-sound ferry to Seattle under military guard and boarded a train bound for the Manzanar Reception Center in California’s Owens Valley, 200 miles east of Los Angeles. This transport began the forced exile of 92,000 Japanese Americans directly from their homes in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona into so-called “assembly centers.” There they remained for approximately 100 days until their transfer to permanent “relocation centers” located …
