Licensing

Jerome - harsh living conditions

To view video, Click Here. Sarah S. describes the harsh living conditions and lack of privacy at Jerome.

"When we went to Jerome, our barracks were not finished. When I say finished, you know, they just have the outside wall, the inside was all just unfinished. The winds were coming through between the boards, and when you come from Hawaii where it's warm and to come to a place that's cold, and where they had to have furnace, coal furnace, to heat up the room. Fortunately, all the single guys who were interned with my dad, they came and helped to put the plasterboards to double, to insulate the rooms and that, warmed up. And they gave us a room, oh, a little bigger than my living room. They put six of us, not two rooms and, but can you imagine my parents having no privacy and the four kids sleeping in the same area? And this is what the government did."

Sarah S. Interview - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

Jerome was located in the Mississippi River delta region 12 miles west of the Mississippi River, 18 miles south of McGehee, 120 miles southeast of Little Rock. The 10,000-acre area was impoverished and consisted of heavily wooded swampland. It was 27 miles south of the Rohwer incarceration camp. Summers were hot and humid, with chiggers, mosquitoes, and poisonous snakes.

Population Description: Held people from Los Angeles, Fresno, and Sacramento, California; also held people from Honolulu, Hawaii.

To view facts and photos of Jerome, Click Here to view Densho's interactive Sites of Shame map. Then click on the red dot corresponding to Jerome. Courtesy of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project