Indigenous Affairs

While the U.S. would join a global fight against fascism and Nazi concentration camps, it was erecting militarized camps of its own at home and forcing more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into internment.

In the shadows of Phoenix, tribe is letting crumbling internment camp fade into history

KJZZ | By Gabriel Pietrorazio

Published December 11, 2025 at 4:30 AM MST

An illustration of the Japanese American internment camp on the Gila River Indian Reservation.

More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were held captive inside 10 internment camps nationwide during World War II – including two in Arizona, built on Indian reservations by the U.S. War Relocation Authority without tribal consent.

On Arizona’s western border, the Colorado River Indian Tribes has made a point to preserve the remnants of one such war-time prison, Poston, while the Grand Canyon State’s other camp sits hidden in the shadows of Phoenix.

It’s slowly fading away.

‘Most people on the street don’t know about the camps’

The Gila River Indian Community has strict rules about accessing the abandoned 16,500-acre site, originally known as the Rivers Relocation Center. It was named after Jim Rivers, an Akimel O’odham killed in World War One. Now, it’s more commonly called Gila River, and the camp’s location is mainly off-limits.

Would-be visitors must apply for a handful of tribe-issued permits.

A permit allowing KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio inside the former Gila River internment camp from March 2025.

The Gila River Indian Community grants only roughly 10 in any given year, mostly to internee families, descendants and the few living camp survivors. Otherwise, anybody who visits without written permission is considered a trespasser and could face punishment.

Even high-ranking diplomats have had trouble getting in, according to Kelly Moeur, who serves as honorary consul of Japan in Phoenix. Without a consulate of his own, he still helps promote trade and culture on behalf of the Land of the Rising Sun. Moeur also tries to offer a better understanding of Japanese American internment history.

“I imagine most people on the street don’t know about the camps,” he said. “They might passively, but no. People really don’t ask about it at all.”

Kelly Moeur has served as honorary consul of Japan in Phoenix since 2004.

Growing up, the fourth-generation Arizonan admittedly didn’t learn much about this camp – until he started taking trips there as part of his official duties. And despite Moeur’s best efforts, a former Japanese consul general from Los Angeles, still couldn’t get inside.

“You can see where the barracks were, but it’s now just foundations, and there’s a hill with a monument on it,” added Moeur. “A lot of the camps are stuck out in the middle of nowhere, basically.”

‘This is not a tourist camp’

I was able to visit this restricted site twice this year along with Wally Jones, who works for the tribe’s Department of Land Use Planning and Zoning. He also helped process my months-long application. The tribe’s Natural Resources Standing Committee approved my request for a trip.

A sign near the Interstate-10 off-ramp for the Gila River Indian Reservation.

I first met Jones in April at the Chevron gas station in Bapchule, about 30 miles south of downtown Phoenix. Per the permit conditions, the Gila River Indian Community did not allow KJZZ to photograph or record once inside the camp itself. But Jones agreed to let me document our short ride there while driving his pickup truck.

No matter who is coming out, Jones stresses they’re not tours.

“I can’t give, really the location. I wanted to, but people do search it. This is not a tourist camp,” Jones reiterated. “This is a regulated entry that the department processes for the council’s consideration for your visit. Not just anyone can come out here. These are one of the few sites that the community allows non-members to come in and kind of experience what was here.”

One of nearly 900 barracks housed at the Gila River Relocation Center.

What was here in 1942 would’ve equated to Arizona’s fourth-largest city – once home to 13,348 internees stuck in the Sonoran Desert at the peak of the camp’s population. Only Phoenix, Tucson and another internment camp, Poston in western Arizona, had more inhabitants.

Without the San Carlos Irrigation Project pumping water into the arid desert lands spanning almost 600 square miles, the Rivers Relocation Center wouldn’t have been a viable option for internees – let alone for growing crops and raising cattle. In spite of that harsh climate, Gila River became the biggest agricultural producer among the county’s war relocation centers.

An internee irrigates a winter pasture at the Gila River camp.

A leasing agreement between the Valley tribe and the U.S. War Relocation Authority sought to “subjugate” some 8,000 acres of farmland while also feeding 25,000 chickens, 2,500 hogs, 2,000 head of cattle and 110 dairy cows.

Agriculture wasn’t this internment camp’s sole wartime industry.

Prisoners also made camouflage nets inside a factory and had another plant just for building model naval ships used to train Allied pilots for bombing missions. They even had a vegetable dehydration plant and tofu factory, much like Poston.

Internees were also incentivized to help pick the tribe’s namesake Pima cotton from surrounding fields, but UCLA assistant anthropology professor Koji Lau-Ozawa shared that “expedition proved to be a more or less complete failure.”

Their wages were solely based on how much cotton they’d collect by weight.

“But it turns out that picking cotton is miserable and hard,” added Lau-Ozawa, who is a descendant of Gila River camp survivors. “A lot of people tried and were like, ‘This sucks, this is terrible,’ so they really struggled in recruiting.”