Title: Japanese Mexican removal | Densho Encyclopedia
Headings: Japanese Mexican removal
Japanese Mexican removal
Contents
Background
After Pearl Harbor
Refugees and Internees
For More Information
Footnotes

Content: The large majority of them resettled in Mexico City, or to a lesser extent Guadalajara. Once they left the coast, the refugees formed caravans to make the long journey eastward. Members of the capital district's existing Japanese community, who were less directly affected than others by official actions, transformed the defunct Japanese consulate and Japanese Associations into the "Comité Japonés de Ayuda Mutua" (Bokuto Kyoekai), a mutual aid society that worked to aid the distressed migrants, as well as some locals fired from factory jobs. The community in Guadalajara followed suit on a smaller scale. Some 350 refugees in Mexico City were established on a ranch in Batan donated by a community member. Another 500 people, who had no other means, interned themselves at a ranch in Temixco established by President Miguel Avila Camacho, where they grew crops to feed themselves. Others went to a ranch in Castro Urdiales in Jaliso. Most refugees were ultimately able to find housing and some sort of employment, but they lived in privation, with no government assistance and little aid from the Kyoekai. In addition to its removal policy, the Mexican government interned a selection of Japanese whom it considered dangerous. In early 1942, raids were carried out on Japanese communities in Mexico City.