On the East Coast a lesser number of Japanese Americans were incarcerated, ironically on Ellis Island, and most avoided forcible removal or arrest. However, the general atmosphere of distrust and racism towards Asian Americans after the outbreak of World War II led many issei and nisei to lose their jobs. Some were placed under government surveillance, others were subjected to warrantless searches of their homes, and all non-citizen issei had to register as “enemy aliens” and carry special identification cards. In 1994, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia verbalized unfounded discrimination, expressing that Japanese Americans resettled from camps in Manhattan and Brooklyn could pose “potential dangers” near New York’s military installations, plants, or shipping facilities.

Between 1943 and 1945, the War Relocation Authority granted leave clearance for more than 4,000 graduating high school seniors to leave the concentration camps to attend institutions of higher learning in the Midwestern or Eastern United States. These institutions included the University of Connecticut. This photograph depicts the 1945 University of Connecticut baseball team. Two of the players, Hiyakawa (first row, far left) and Kiyokawa (first row, far right), were among the students who had received leave clearance.