| 1952 | |
| 1961 | |
| 1962 | |
| 1963 | |
| 1964a | (649) There was only one important occasion when the normal rights of civilians were violated in the interest of national safety. In the excitement following the attack on Pearl Harbor, over a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes along the Pacific Coast and herded into camps run by the army. |
| 1964b | |
| 1964c | (615) In sad contrast to this moderation the frenzy of public fury turned on the Japanese. The fighting in the Pacific developed a fierce savagery, reflected in the public anger within the United States. On the Pacific coast, hatred of Americans of Japanese background became extreme. Wild stories circulated about sabotage at Pearl Harbor -- stories later proven 100 per cent untrue. As sandbags were piled around Pacific coast telephone offices, and barrage balloons were raised over shipyards, fear of Japanese-American espionage and sabotage became intense. Under public pressure, Roosevelt in February, 1942, authorized the army to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry. (616) The persecution of Japanese-Americans was the only serious violation of civil liberties during the war. It represented a serious erosion of civilian rights, for the Supreme Court in 1944 validated the evacuation and in other decisions upheld military control over civilians. In time of war or national emergency, citizens could expect no court protection of their rights as against military or executive authority. |
| 1964d | |
| 1964e | |
| 1965 | |
| 1966a | |
| 1966b | |
| 1966c | |
| 1966d | - |
| 1966e | (741) One group of people who suffered a great injustice during the war were the Japanese-Americans. The government, fearing sabotage in the event of a Japanese invasion, moved those on the West Coast to inland relocation centers. The American Civil Liberties Union denounced this action as "the worst single wholesale violation of civil rights of American citizens in our history." |
| 1967a | |
| 1967b | |
| 1967c | |
| 1968a | - |
| 1968b | |
| 1968c | |
| 1969a | |
| 1969b | (667) Hysteria and intolerance were minimal -- with one major exception. More than 100,000 loyal Japanese-Americans were removed to relocation centers. |
| 1969c | |
| 1969d | |
| 1970 | |
| 1971a | |
| 1971b | (343) The Home Front in World War Two. Chapter 96 describes how the American people organized and worked together at home to help win the war. The main topics in the chapter are: * The change-over of American industry to the production of war material. * The wartime efforts of American workers, * The winning of jobs by black workers during World War Two. * The wartime efforts of American farmers, * Raising money to pay for the war. * Government controls on the economy. * The unfair treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war. * The election of President Roosevelt to a fourth term in 1944. |
| 1972 | |
| 1973 | |
| 1974 | (758) After Pearl Harbor white residents of west coast states feared an internal threat from the Japanese Americans. They appealed to President Roosevelt to remove the entire community from the west coast. Actually, there was no evidence whatsoever of sabotage. But officials such as California's attorney general Earl Warren (later a great civil libertarian as the Chief Justice of the United States) urged their evacuation to protect the region's civil defense. Bowing to these pressures, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 authorizing the relocation of Japanese Americans to nine inland centers. |
| 1975 | - |
| 1976 | - |
| 1978a | - |
| 1978b | (568) [Picture] After Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans march to internment camps under armed guard. They were held until 1945. On the West Coast 126,000 of them lost homes, farms, and businesses. (663) Before his appointment to the Court by President Eisenhower in 1953, Warren had been active in California politics. As the state's attorney general, he had played a major role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (page 568). This was hardly the basis for supposing that he would take a strong interest in protecting citizen rights. But Warren proved skillful in leading the Supreme Court to decisions that significantly advanced civil liberties. |
| 1980 | |
| 1981a | |
| 1981b | (313) Then with the outbreak of World War II, Japanese Americans in Hawaii and along the Pacific coast ? citizens and aliens alike ? lost their homes and businesses when they were interned in "relocation" camps. (608) The internment camps. Despite racial and ethnic differences, the members of most minority groups did make social and economic gains during World War II. One minority group, however, was subjected to especially severe discrimination. That group was made up of Japanese Americans -- Japanese people who had migrated to the United States, and the Nisei who were American-born people of Japanese descent. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor came the widespread belief that Japan would try to invade the United States. The federal government quickly arrested a few Japanese Americans who were considered to be disloyal. However, this action did not satisfy the growing numbers of people who thought that all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast should be imprisoned or deported. At first the federal government was reluctant to move all Japanese Americans. There was no proof that any of them really were a threat to national safety. But in the face of public opinion and increased attacks against the lives and property of the Japanese Americans, the government was forced to take action. As a result Executive Order 9066 was issued in February, 1942. Executive Order 9066 called for the relocation of Japanese Americans to camps that were removed from coastal areas. (608) [Picture] During the war, racial discrimination struck hard against Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast. Viewed as a security threat, the entire Japanese American population was moved to internment camps located inland. (609) [Picture] For many Japanese Americans the ordeal of discrimination continued even after the war. |
| 1982a | (337-8) The upheaval in everyday life resulting from these controls and from the whole vast war effort revealed the extraordinary willingness of the American people to make sacrifices for the national emergency. Despite discomforts and sacrifices, the people maintained a remarkably high level of morale. Americans also suffered deep anxieties and fears. However, these fears did not lead to the widespread repressions of minority groups that occurred in World War I. The tragic exception to this overall tolerance was the forced relocation of some 100,000 Americans of Japanese birth or parentage. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans were genuinely fearful of a Japanese attack on the United States. (337) [Picture] Hastily built tarpaper barracks were the new homes for Japanese Americans in 1942 when they were forced to leave their former homes and relocate in detention camps. This camp was set up in the desert near Manzanar, California. |
| 1982b | (635) The war had a very different impact on the lives of Japanese Americans. Many lived in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, some 110,000 Japanese Americans ? 70,000 of whom were Nisei (ne'sa'), or American-born citizens -- were forced to "relocate" in distant states because military leaders thought they would come to the aid of Japan. |
| 1982c | - |
| 1982d | |
| 1982e | (619) In spite of the war, people who had suffered severe economic hardship saw a chance to improve their lives. There was one glaring exception. On the West Coast, 110,000 Americans of Japanese birth or descent made their homes. During the early months of 1942, Japan was winning the opening battles of the war. Fears were expressed that a Japanese force might land on the United States Pacific Coast and that Japanese descendants living there would support Japan. Nothing whatever in the past behavior of Japanese-Americans supported such a belief. Behind it was a long history of prejudice against Asians. (619) [Picture] By nightfall on December 7, 1941, the FBI had arrested some 1300 "potentially dangerous" Japanese aliens in California. By spring of 1942, the civil liberties of all Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast had been suspended. Beginning in April, nearly 110,000 Japanese-Americans ? half of them under 20 ? were ordered to relocation centers. From there they were moved to barracks surrounded by barbed wire. |
| 1983a | - |
| 1983b | (165-6) With no evidence at all, high American officials hinted that Japanese Americans were cooperating with the Japanese government against the United States. In California, Washington, and Oregon there was talk of Japanese spying and sabotage. Otherwise sensible people demanded that Japanese Americans be forced to leave the West Coast. General Benjamin DeWitt, United States Army commander on the West Coast, urged the government to order their removal from that region. In this letter to the Secretary of War, DeWitt gives his reasons. Hostile naval and air raids will be assisted by enemy agents signaling from the coastline and the vicinity thereof: and by supplying and otherwise assisting enemy vessels and by sabotage. . . . The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second- and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become "Americanized," the racial strains are undiluted. . . . It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies of Japanese extraction are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken. What are DeWitt's reasons for wanting the Japanese removed? Read General DeWitt's last sentence again. With this kind of reasoning, was there any way for Japanese Americans to defend themselves against the charge of disloyalty? (166-8) They were then shipped to ten "relocation centers" that were set up in isolated parts of California, Arizona, Wyoming, and several other western states. There, behind barbed-wire fences, they tried to establish some kind of normal existence for the duration of the war. Those who were herded into these camps were understandably bitter. One, testifying before a United States Senate committee, put it this way. Our citizenship has even been attacked as an evil cloak under which we can expect immunity for the nefarious purpose of conspiring to destroy the American way of life. To us -- who have been born, raised, and educated in American institutions and in our system of public schools, knowing and owing no other allegiance than to the United States -- such a thought is manifestly unfair and ambiguous. . . . We cannot understand why General DeWitt can make exceptions for families of German and Italian soldiers in the armed forces of the United States while ignoring the civil rights of the Nisei Americans. Are we to be condemned merely on the basis of cur racial origin? Is citizenship such a light and transient thing that that which is our inalienable right in normal times can be torn from us in times of war? The questions in that last paragraph were not answered by the committee. It was, indeed, difficult to understand why Japanese Americans should be treated one way and German and Italian Americans, against whose ancestral land America was also at war, another way. The reasons most often given were those cited by General DeWitt. Were they, do you think, valid reasons for removing Japanese Americans from their homes and placing them in camps? Perhaps there was also another reason that few mentioned. As a member of a nativist organization said, "This is our time to get things done that we have been trying to get done for a quarter of a century." (166) [Picture] a group of Japanese Americans are trucked to a relocation center in a western state soon after the United States entered World War II. Their internment was a tragic case of discrimination. |
| 1983c | (441) With no evidence at all, high American officials hinted that Japanese Americans were cooperating with the Japanese government against the United States. In California, Washington, and Oregon there was talk of Japanese spying and sabotage. Otherwise sensible people demanded that Japanese Americans be forced to leave the West Coast. General Benjamin DeWitt, United States Army commander on the West Coast, urged the government to order their removal from that region. In this letter to the Secretary of War, DeWitt gives his reasons. Hostile naval and air raids will be assisted by enemy agents signaling from the coastline and the vicinity thereof: and by supplying and otherwise assisting enemy vessels and by sabotage. . . . The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second- and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become "Americanized," the racial strains are undiluted. . . . It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies of Japanese extraction are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken. What are DeWitt's reasons for wanting the Japanese removed? Read General DeWitt's last sentence again. With this kind of reasoning, was there any way for Japanese Americans to defend themselves against the charge of disloyalty? (442-4) They were then shipped to ten "relocation centers" that were set up in isolated parts of California, Arizona, Wyoming, and several other western states. There, behind barbed-wire fences, they tried to establish some kind of normal existence for the duration of the war. Those who were herded into these camps were understandably bitter. One, testifying before a United States Senate committee, put it this way. Our citizenship has even been attacked as an evil cloak under which we can expect immunity for the nefarious purpose of conspiring to destroy the American way of life. To us -- who have been born, raised, and educated in American institutions and in our system of public schools, knowing and owing no other allegiance than to the United States -- such a thought is manifestly unfair and ambiguous. . . . We cannot understand why General DeWitt can make exceptions for families of German and Italian soldiers in the armed forces of the United States while ignoring the civil rights of the Nisei Americans. Are we to be condemned merely on the basis of cur racial origin? Is citizenship such a light and transient thing that that which is our inalienable right in normal times can be torn from us in times of war? The questions in that last paragraph were not answered by the committee. It was, indeed, difficult to understand why Japanese Americans should be treated one way and German and Italian Americans, against whose ancestral land America was also at war, another way. The reasons most often given were those cited by General DeWitt above. Were they, do you think, valid reasons? Perhaps there was also another reason that few mentioned. As a member of a nativist organization said, "This is our time to get things done that we have been trying to get done for a quarter of a century." (442) [Picture] a group of Japanese Americans are trucked to a relocation center in a western state soon after the United States entered World War II. Their internment was a tragic case of discrimination. |
| 1983d | - |
| 1984 | (425) The exception was the internment in "relocation centers" of more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans. Of these people, 70,000 were Nisei, or native-born citizens of the United States. Charges of criminal behavior were never brought against them; none were ever indicted or tried, though civilian courts were open and accessible. The Supreme Court upheld the government's policy of internment. In wartime, the Court said in the Hirabayashi ruling (1943), "residents having ethnic affiliations with an invading enemy may be a greater source of danger than those of different ancestry." And in the Korematsu case (1944), the Court, with three justices dissenting, approved the removal of the Nisei from the West Coast. One dissenter, Justice Frank Murphy, denounced the decision as the "legalization of racism." In an even more ominous appraisal, Circuit Court Judge William Denman had written, "the identity of this doctrine with that of the Hitler generals . . . justifying the gas chambers of Dachau is unmistakable." (425) [Picture] Branded members of an enemy race by the government, more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up and shipped to internment camps. These people were among the 18,000 Japanese-Americans sent to a race track at Santa Anita, California, where they lived in horses' stalls. National Archives. |
| 1985a | (734) In sad contrast to this moderation, a frenzy of public fury turned against Americans of Japanese birth or descent. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, wild stories circulated about sabotage there and about plots to aid an enemy landing on the California coast, stories that afterward proved to be completely untrue. In February 1942 Roosevelt authorized the army to remove all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. . . . The Supreme Court in 1944 approved the holding of Japanese Americans in concentration camps and later handed down other decisions endorsing military control over civilians. In wartime, apparently, American citizens could not rely on the Constitution or the Court for the protection of their civil rights. |
| 1985b | (573) Detention Camps. Following the sneak attack on Pearl harbor, a deep distrust of Japanese Americans developed in the United States. People worried that Americans of Japanese descent might help the enemy. With the agreement of Earl Warren, governor of California, President Roosevelt disgracefully ordered the army to move the Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast to inland detention camps. (573) [Picture] In 1941 there were more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent in the United States. About 71,000 of them were Nisei (American born). Early in 1942 all those living on the West Coast were moved to relocation camps. |
| 1985c | (249) General J. L. DeWitt, responsible for defending the Pacific Coast against enemy attack, feared that the 112,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who lived in the West Coast states might be a threat to national security. General DeWitt recommended that these people be sent away from the region. Suspension of Constitutional Rights. More than 75,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry lived on the West Coast of the United States. . . . Born in the United States, the children of these immigrants had, of course, become citizens at birth. They also considered themselves patriotic and loyal. Yet, many American politicians and leaders thought otherwise. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson urged President Roosevelt to take action to remove all American citizens of Japanese ancestry, as well as all Japanese immigrants, from the West Coast. On February 19, 1942, The President issued Executive Order #9066 giving authority to military commanders to establish special zones in territory threatened by enemy attack. The order invested the military commanders with power to decide who could come, go, or remain in the special military areas. |
| 1986a | - |
| 1986b | (807) The tragic exception to this overall tolerance was the forced relocation of some 100,000 Americans of Japanese birth or parentage. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans were genuinely fearful of a Japanese attack on the United States. |
| 1986c | (634) The worst discrimination, however, was felt by Japanese Americans. Most Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast. Many were successful farmers and business people. For years, they had faced racial prejudice in part because of their success. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many white Americans distrusted Japanese Americans. They warned that Japanese Americans on the West Coast could act as spies and help Japan invade the United States. The President agreed to an order to move Japanese Americans away from the coast to "relocation" camps farther inland. |
| 1986d | - |
| 1986e | - |
| 1986f | (499) After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, over 100,000 Japanese (most of them American citizens) were removed from the West Coast to ten detention camps inland. They were treated almost like prisoners and kept behind barbed-wire fences. Both President Franklin Roosevelt and the Supreme Court approved. |
| 1987a | - |
| 1987b | - |
| 1988 | (619) German-Americans and Italian-Americans were usually not blamed for the actions of Hitler and Mussolini. Japanese-American citizens, or Nisei, however, were treated very differently. Pearl Harbor inflamed the racist feelings that some Americans had toward Japanese. Some Americans also were afraid that the Japanese-Americans were spying for Japan and secretly trying to damage the war effort. (619) [Picture] Think: During World War II. 100,000 Japanese-Americans were taken from their homes. Respond: What do you suppose these people were thinking as they were taken to relocation camps? (What will happen to my family? to my business?) (620) After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, people feared Japanese-Americans might spy for Japan. President Roosevelt ordered the army to evacuate the entire Japanese-American community on the west coast to camps in the West and Midwest. From the camps, people were to be relocated to areas away from the west coast. Within two months, 110,000 American citizens and their alien parents lost their incomes, their property, and their civil liberties. (T116) Why were Japanese-Americans taken from their homes and placed in relocation camps? The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the accounts of Japanese-Americans in California were frozen. Additionally, the banks refused to cash their checks. These American citizens were forbidden to conduct business, and in countless cases were refused service. Soon, public outcry demanded that the Japanese be evacuated from the west coast. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt authorized the secretary of war to designate certain areas of the United States as military areas from which people could be excluded. |
| 1989a | (634) The worst discrimination, however, was felt by Japanese Americans. Most Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast. Many were successful farmers and business people. For years, they had faced racial prejudice in part because of their success. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many white Americans distrusted Japanese Americans. They warned that Japanese Americans on the West Coast could act as spies and help Japan invade the United States. The President agreed to an order to move Japanese Americans away from the coast to "relocation" camps farther inland. |
| 1989b | - |
| 1990a | (674) The bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan created a wave of anger against Americans of Japanese ancestry. Although Japanese Americans were loyal citizens, many other Americans held them responsible for the Japanese attack. And since most of them lived on the Pacific coast in small, identifiable communities, they became easy targets for systematic discrimination. Once at war, the United States feared a Japanese invasion of the Pacific coast, the area of the country closest to Japan. Warning of possible sabotage, in February 1942, defense officials labeled Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast "a menace to be dealt with." Yielding to pressure, President Roosevelt granted the War Department full authority to forcibly relocate thousands of innocent Japanese Americans. With little or no warning, 110,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and moved to internment camps in the middle of the country. (674) [Pictures] "Herd 'em up, pack 'em off, and give 'em the inside room in the Badlands," recommended one newspaper columnist as the appropriate treatment for Japanese Americans. In 1942, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were loaded onto trucks, like those at left, and transported to isolated camps roped off by barbed wire. |
| 1990b | (571) Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry had long faced discrimination on the West Coast. After Pearl Harbor their situation became much worse. For no good reason, other citizens blamed them for what the Japanese militarists had done and even began to suspect that they might be helping the enemy across the Pacific. Western politicians and frightened military men pressured FDR to remove them from the coastal states. President Roosevelt gave in. Early in I942, under the excuse of national security, 110,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up. There was no evidence that these Americans were disloyal. (571) [Picture] Ordered to leave their homes and businesses on short notice by order of the united States government, bewildered Japanese Americans wait in Los Angeles for a train to take them to an internment camp. |
| 1990c | (664-5) One minority group, the Japanese Americans, fared badly during the war. Most Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast. Many residents there had long held a prejudice against this minority. To this prejudice was now added the fear that people of Japanese ancestry might help the Japanese enemy in an attack on the land along the Pacific Coast. A demand arose for people of Japanese ancestry to be removed from the West Coast of the United States. Some military and political leaders joined the chorus, and President Roosevelt bowed to the pressure. In February 1942 he ordered the army to move some 110,000 people of Japanese background to relocation centers farther inland. These relocation centers were crowded, hastily built camps where the residents lived behind barbed wire and under armed guard during the war. . . . The whole episode was a shameful one, not fitting for a democratic society. There was never any evidence of disloyalty on the part of the Japanese Americans. |
| 1990d | (862) The Japanese were easier to hate than the Germans. The attack on Pearl Harbor created a special animosity toward the Japanese, but the depiction of the Japanese as warlike and subhuman owed something to a long tradition of fear of the so-called yellow peril and a distrust of all Asians. The movies, magazine articles, cartoons, and posters added to the image of the Japanese soldier or pilot with a toothy grin murdering innocent women and children or shooting down helpless Americans. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Time magazine explained to Americans how they could distinguish our Asian friends the Chinese "from the Japs." "Virtually all Japanese are short, Japanese are seldom fat; they often dry up with age," Time declared. "Most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles. Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard-heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait. The Chinese expression is likely to be more kindly, placid, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant. The racial stereotype of the Japanese played a role in the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war. Some prejudice was shown against German and Italian-Americans, but Japanese-Americans were the only group confined in concentration camps in the greatest mass abridgment of civil liberties in American history. (862-3) The Japanese had long suffered from racial discrimination and prejudice in the United States. They were barred from intermarriage with other groups and excluded from many clubs, restaurants, and recreation facilities. Many worked as tenant farmers, fishermen, or small businessmen. Others made up a small professional class of lawyers, teachers, and doctors and a large class of landowning farmers. Although many retained cultural and linguistic ties to Japan, they posed no more threat to the country than did the much larger groups of Italian-Americans and German-Americans. But their physical characteristics made them stand out as the others did not. After Pearl Harbor, an anti-Japanese panic seized the West Coast. A Los Angeles newspaper reported that armed Japanese were in Baja California ready to attack. Rumors suggested that Japanese fishermen were preparing to sow mines in the harbor, blow up tunnels, and poison the water supply. West Coast politicians and ordinary citizens urged the War Department and the president to evacuate the Japanese. The president capitulated and issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the evacuation in February 1942. "The continued pressure of a largely unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion, constituted a menace which had to be dealt with," General John De Witt argued, justifying the removal on military grounds. But racial fear and animosity, not military necessity, stood behind the order. (862) [Picture] Japanese-American children on their way to a "relocation center." |
| 1990e | (647) Two months after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that resulted in the internment of 77,000 Japanese American citizens and 43,000 Japanese nationals living along the west coast of the United States. These citizens and aliens were spread among 26 ''relocation centers" in 16 states across the country. |
| 1991 | (612) The war inflamed a long tradition of racism against people of Asian ancestry. The governor of Idaho said, for example, "A good solution to the Jap problem would be to send them all back to Japan, then sink the island.h Many believed that Japanese Americans would act as spies or saboteurs, although there was little evidence to back such beliefs. (612) [Picture] This photograph shows the anxiety Japanese American families felt as they left their homes for remote internment camps. ETHICS: Why, do you think, were Japanese Americans treated differently from German Americans or Italian Americans? |
| 1992a | - |
| 1992b | |
| 1992c | (289) In 1942, responding to deep-seated nativist fears unleashed by war hysteria, the U.S. began evacuating Japanese-Americans from their homes on the West Coast, placing them in "interment" camps for the duration of World War II. (289-90) As rumors spread across the country of a Japanese plot to sabotage war industries and invade the west coast, Americans demanded that something be done about the Japanese living among them. Many of the demands came from farmers and politicians on the west coast, where most of the Japanese-Americans lived. The farmers were seeking to eliminate competition by the Japanese; the politicians were playing on the public's fears to gain popularity. The federal government gave in to these demands, and on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 requiring all Japanese-Americans, both citizens and non-citizens, living within two hundred miles of the Pacific Coast to evacuate their homes. More than a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans were moved to ten internment camps located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. |
| 1992d | (677) Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry had long faced discrimination on the West Coast. After Pearl Harbor their situation became much worse. For no good reason, other citizens blamed them for what the Japanese militarists had done and even began to suspect that they might be helping the enemy across the Pacific. Western politicians and frightened military men pressured FDR to remove them from the coastal states. President Roosevelt gave in. Early in 1942, under the excuse of national security, 110,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up. There was no evidence that these Americans were disloyal. (678) [Picture] Ordered to leave their homes and businesses on short notice by the United States government, anxious Japanese Americans wait in Los Angeles for a train to take them to an internment camp. |
| 1992e | (677) Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry had long faced discrimination on the West Coast. After Pearl Harbor their situation became much worse. For no good reason, other citizens blamed them for what the Japanese militarists had done and even began to suspect that they might be helping the enemy across the Pacific. Western politicians and frightened military men pressured FDR to remove them from the coastal states. President Roosevelt gave in. Early in 1942, under the excuse of national security, 110,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up. There was no evidence that these Americans were disloyal. (678) [Picture] Ordered to leave their homes and businesses on short notice by the United States government, anxious Japanese Americans wait in Los Angeles for a train to take them to an internment camp. (677) Critical Thinking Activity: Demonstrating Reasoned Judgment Can the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II be justified? The text states, "In time of war it is harder than ever for a free nation to preserve its freedoms." Ask students to decide if this statement justifies the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. What evidence would support or dispute this idea? Have students offer their viewpoint in an essay. |
| 1992f | (649) Although the American people were solidly against all the Axis powers, there was no persecution of German and Italian Americans as had occurred during the First World War. Japanese Americans, however, were treated harshly. About 112,000 living in the Far West were rounded up and sent to internment camps in barren parts of the interior. |
| 1992g | (472-3) The bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan created a wave of anger against Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were loyal citizens. But many other Americans held them responsible for the attack. Most Japanese Americans lived on the Pacific Coast in small, visible communities. They were easy targets for discrimination. The United States feared a Japanese invasion of the Pacific Coast. This was the area of the country closest to Japan. In February 1942, defense officials warned of possible sabotage. They labeled Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast "a menace to be dealt with." Roosevelt responded to such pressure by granting the War Department full authority to remove thousands of innocent Japanese Americans. With little or no warning, 110,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted. Authorities relocated them to internment camps. |
| 1993a | |
| 1993b | - |
| 1994a | (356) To unleash such hatred against a foreign enemy could be expected of any nation engaged in war. Less understandable was the decision in early 1942 to single out 110,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of them citizens of the United States, remove them from their homes on the West Coast, and confine them in inland camps. The decision reflected racial rather than military considerations. It was the result of more than forty years of anti-Japanese sentiment and racial tension on the West Coast. No removal was ordered in Hawaii, where 32 percent of the population was of Japanese descent. Nor did anyone seriously consider doing the same to German-Americans or Italian-Americans. Earl Warren, attorney general of California, explained "that we can, in dealing with the Germans and the Italians, arrive at some fairly sound conclusions because of our knowledge of the way they live in the community and have lived for many years. But when we deal with the Japanese we are in an entirely different field and we cannot form any opinion that we believe to be sound." Although there was no evidence of Japanese sabotage on the West Coast after Pearl Harbor, that only confirmed the suspicions of those who advocated removal. The head of the Western Defense Command, in recommending removal to the secretary of war, concluded, "The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." |
| 1994b | (364) The Japanese were easier to hate than the Germans. The attack on Pearl Harbor created a special animosity toward the Japanese, but the depiction of the Japanese as warlike and subhuman owed something to a long tradition of fear of the so-called yellow peril and a distrust of all Asians. The movies, magazine articles, cartoons, and posters added to the image of the Japanese soldier or pilot with a toothy grin murdering innocent women and children or shooting down helpless Americans. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Time magazine explained to Americans how they could distinguish our Asian friends the Chinese "from the Japs." "Virtually all Japanese are short, Japanese are seldom fat; they often dry up with age," Time declared. "Most Chinese avoid hornrimmed spectacles. Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard-heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait. The Chinese expression is likely to be more kindly, placid, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant. The racial stereotype of the Japanese played a role in the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war. Some prejudice was shown against German- and Italian-Americans, but Japanese-Americans were the only group confined in concentration camps, in the greatest mass abridgment of civil liberties in American history. (864-5) The Japanese had long suffered from racial discrimination and prejudice in the United States. They were barred from intermarriage with other groups and excluded from many clubs, restaurants, and recreation facilities. Many worked as tenant farmers, fishermen, or small businessmen. Others made up a small professional class of lawyers, teachers, and doctors and a large class of landowning farmers. Although many retained cultural and linguistic ties to Japan, they posed no more threat to the country than did the much larger groups of Italian-Americans and German-Americans. But their physical characteristics made them stand out as the others did not. After Pearl Harbor, an anti-Japanese panic seized the West Coast. A Los Angeles newspaper reported that armed Japanese were in Baja, California, ready to attack. Rumors suggested that Japanese fishermen were preparing to sow mines in the harbor, blow up tunnels, and poison the water supply. West Coast politicians and ordinary citizens urged the War Department and the president to evacuate the Japanese. The president capitulated and issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the evacuation in February 1942. "The continued pressure of a largely unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion, constituted a menace which had to be dealt with," General John De Witt argued, justifying the removal on military grounds. But racial fear and animosity, not military necessity, stood behind the order. (865) [Picture] Japanese-American children on their way to a "relocation center." For many Japanese-Americans, but especially for the children, the nightmare of the relocation camp experience would stay with them all their lives. |
| 1994c | (498) Much of the anger that Americans felt about Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was directed at Japanese Americans. Over 110,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them American citizens, were forced to go to detention camps after the attack. These camps consisted of poorly-built barracks with no indoor plumbing or central heating. (563) World War II brought tragedy to Japanese Americans. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, some Americans claimed that Japanese Americans on the West Coast were a danger to the nation. They feared they might spy for the Japanese government. No evidence was ever given to support this claim, but the government acted on this fear. |
| 1994d | |
| 1995a | - |
| 1995b | (228) (1) After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans became suspicious of all people who had a Japanese background. (2) Beginning in the spring of 1942, Japanese-American citizens were taken from their homes and placed in prison camps. (3) They were forced to move so swiftly that often their property was lost, stolen, or sold for a fraction of its real value. (4) More than 100,000 men, women, and children were put behind barbed wire fences. (5) The reason given for relocating these people was military necessity. (6) But it should be noted that no Japanese-American was ever found to be a spy or saboteur. |
| 1995c | - |
| 1996a | (757-8) In a society in which immigration laws discriminated against Asians by race, the war with Japan made life difficult for loyal Asian Americans of all backgrounds. Black and Hispanic workers still faced discrimination in shipyards and airplane factories as much as they had in peacetime industries. Italians and Asian Americans. When World War II began, about 600,000 Italian aliens and 5 million Italian Americans lived in the United States. Most still lived in Italian neighborhoods centered around churches, fraternal organizations, and clubs. Some had been proud of Mussolini and supported Fascismo. "Mussolini was a hero," recalled one Italian American, "a superhero. He made us feel special." Those attitudes changed abruptly after Pearl Harbor. During the war, Italian Americans unquestioningly pledged their loyalties to the United States. Enemy aliens. At first the government treated Italians without citizenship (along with Japanese and Germans) as "aliens of enemy nationality." They could not travel without permission, enter strategic areas, or possess short-wave radios, guns, or maps. By 1942 few Americans believed that German or Italian Americans posed any kind of danger. Eager to keep the support of Italian voters in the 1942 congressional elections, Roosevelt chose Columbus Day, 1942, to lift restrictions on Italian aliens. The segregation of Italian Americans ended. Henceforth they would maintain their ethnic unity as a matter of choice, not necessity. The 127,000 Japanese living in the United States, whether aliens or citizens, did not experience similar tolerance. Ironically, prejudices against them were least high in Hawaii, where the war with Japan had begun. Newspapers there expressed confidence in the loyalty of Japanese Americans, who in any case were crucial to the success of Hawaii's economy. Issei. The situation was far more volatile on the mainland. There, Japanese Americans remained largely separated from the mainstream of American life, often because state laws and local custom threw up complex barriers. In the western states where they were concentrated around urban areas, most Japanese Americans could not vote, own land, or live in decent neighborhoods. Approximately 47,000 Japanese aliens, known as Issei, were ineligible for citizenship under American law. Only their children could become citizens. Despite such restrictions, some Japanese achieved success in small businesses like landscaping, while many others worked on or owned farms that supplied fruits and vegetables to growing cities. (759) [Picture] The bleak landscape of this camp at Manzanar, California, was typical of the internment camps to which the government sent Japanese Americans. |
| 1996b | (526) The one enormous exception to the nations generally creditable wartime civil liberties record was the internment in "relocation centers" of, ultimately, 120,000 Japanese Americans. (526-7) Their imprisonment was based not on suspicion or evidence of treason; their crime was solely their ethnic origin-the fact that they were of Japanese descent. Charges of criminal behavior were never brought against any Japanese-Americans; none was ever indicted or tried for espionage, treason, or sedition. "It was really cruel and harsh," recalled Joseph Y. Kurihara, a citizen and a veteran of World War I. "To pack and evacuate in forty-eight hours was an impossibility. Seeing mothers completely bewildered with children crying from want and peddlers taking advantage and offering prices next to robbery made me feel like murdering those responsible." |
| 1996c | (225) Most of our students have studied about Hitler's concentration camps but few know about the ordeal Japanese Americans faced in America during World War II. The photograph in this exercise can engender a good class discussion. (256) 4-13 INTERNMENT CAMPS FOR JAPANESE AMERICANS. During World War II, over 110,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps for over three years. The U.S. Army was given the power to arrest every Japanese American on the West Coast (without warrants, indictments, or hearings) and forcibly remove them from their homes to be "relocated" for the "security of the country." Read the following quotes that reflect the action of the U.S. government: "I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska, and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps.... Damn them! Let's get rid of them now!" (1) CONGRESSMAN JOHN RANKIN, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 12/15/1941. "ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY, BOTH ALIEN AND NONALIEN, WILL BE EVACUATED FROM THE ABOVE DESIGNATED AREA BY 12 O'CLOCK NOON" |
| 1996d | - |
| 1996e | (452-3) World War I had resulted in infringements of civil rights. The United States had a better record World War II. Italian aliens faced restriction for less than a year. But Japanese-Americans suffered a harsher fate as the government in response to hysteria and prejudice, herded them into what clearly were concentration camps. Even the Supreme Court gave its blessing to this unjust relocation. (463) ESSAY QUESTIONS. 1. What steps did the Roosevelt administration take to maximize war production? 2. What reasons did the government have for placing Japanese-Americans in relocation centers? |
| 1997a | (305) In one of its policies, the United States came close to direct duplication of Fascism. This was in its treatment of the Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast. After the Pearl Harbor attack, anti-Japanese hysteria spread in the government. One congressman said: "I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps. . . . Damn them! Let's get rid of them!" Franklin D. Roosevelt did not share this frenzy, but he calmly signed Executive Order 9066, in February 1942, giving the army the power, without warrants or indictments or hearings, to arrest every Japanese-American on the West Coast 110,000 men, women, and children to take them from their homes, transport them to camps far into the interior, and keep them there under prison conditions. |
| 1997b | (546) Generally, World War II brought about few restrictions on civil liberties, or rights guaranteed to all citizens. Almost no one vocally opposed the war after Pearl Harbor, and little danger existed of an attack on the United States. As a result, there was not a repetition of the hysteria and pressure to conform that had occurred during World War I. Most Americans showed tolerance toward persons of foreign ancestry, including citizens of German and Italian descent. The treatment of Japanese Americans, however, became the exception. Relocation. Spring 1942 brought events that are burned into the memories of Japanese Americans. Even though they showed no evidence of disloyalty; more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were moved from their homes to relocation camps. One evacuee. Helen Murao, explained why. "We looked like them [the enemy]. That was our sin." Of the 110,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast and in Hawaii, about one-third were Issei -- foreign-born Japanese who had entered the United States before the National Origins Act of 1924 had dramatically cut the number of immigrants allowed into the country. (547) Japanese Americans were vulnerable because they could easily be singled out and they lacked political power. In addition, they had little economic influence. Popular sentiment against Japanese Americans on the West Coast grew intense after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The San Francisco Chronicle pushed to have Japanese Americans interned. Individuals, including Earl Warren, attorney general of California, (later chief justice of the United States), and several members of Congress, supported relocating Japanese Americans. Finally, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. (547) Over the course of several months, the Japanese Americans were ordered to report to relocation centers. The military justified this action on the basis that Japanese Americans would commit sabotage to aid Japan in an attack on the West Coast. General John DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command argued: "The very fact that no sabotage to aid Japan has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." Other motives were equally important. Farmers and business associations thought they would gain from eliminating Japanese American competitors. Politicians believed they would increase their popular support by favoring relocation. General DeWitt expressed the commonly held view, "the Japanese race is an enemy race." (546) (546) [Picture] Internment. On March 30, 1942, Japanese American evacuees are led from their homes on Bainbridge Island, Washington. According to regulations, they are taking only what they can carry with them. What does the armed escort suggest about the nature of the relocation? (547) [Picture] Internees Return. Shigeo Nagaishi and his Nisei family find broken windows in their home and garage when they return to Seattle, Washington, from the relocation center in Hunt, Idaho, on May 10, 1945. Why was this treatment of Japanese Americans unfair? |
| 1998a | (961-2) In a society in which immigration laws discriminated against Asians by race, the war with Japan made life difficult for loyal Asian Americans of all backgrounds. Black and Hispanic workers faced discrimination in shipyards and airplane factories as much as they had in peacetime industries. Little Italy. Aliens from enemy countries fared far better in World War II than in World War I. When the war began about 600,000 Italian aliens and 5 million Italian Americans lived in the United States. Most still resided in Italian neighborhoods centered around churches, fraternal organizations, and clubs. Some had been proud of Mussolini and supported Fascismo. "Mussolini was a hero," recalled one Italian American, "a superhero. He made us feel special." Those attitudes changed abruptly after Pearl Harbor. During the war, Italian Americans pledged their loyalties to the United States. At first the government treated Italians without citizenship (along with Japanese and Germans) as "aliens of enemy nationality." They could not travel without permission, enter strategic areas, or possess shortwave radios, guns, or maps. By 1942 few Americans believed that German Americans or Italian Americans posed any kind of danger. Eager to keep the support of Italian voters in the 1942 congressional elections, Roosevelt chose Columbus Day, 1942, to lift restrictions on Italian aliens. The segregation of Italian Americans ended. Henceforth they would maintain their ethnic unity as a matter of choice, not necessity. Concentration Camps. Americans did not show similar tolerance toward the 127,000 Japanese living in the United States, whether they were aliens or citizens. Ironically, tensions were least high in Hawaii, where the war with Japan had begun. Local newspapers there expressed confidence in the loyalty of Japanese Americans, who in any case were crucial to Hawaii's economy General Delos Emmons, the military governor of the islands, rebuffed pressures from Washington to evacuate as many as 20,000 'dangerous" Japanese. He branded a Justice Department report warning of widespread sabotage to be "so fantastic it hardly needs refuting." Issei. The situation was quite different on the mainland, where Japanese Americans remained largely separated from the mainstream of American life. State laws and local custom threw up complex barriers to integration. In the western states, where they were concentrated around urban areas, most Japanese could not vote, own land, or live in decent neighborhoods. Approximately 47,000 Japanese aliens, known as "Issei," were ineligible for citizenship under American law. Only their children could become citizens. Despite such restrictions, some Japanese achieved success in small businesses like landscaping, while many others worked on or owned farms that supplied fruits and vegetables to growing cities. (963) [Picture] The bleak landscape of the internment camp at Manzanar, California, was typical of the sites to which the government sent Japanese Americans. In such a harsh environment the Japanese had no real opportunity to create productive farm communities, as government officials had promised. |
| 1998b | - |
| 1998c | (886) The Japanese were easier to hate than the Germans. The attack on Pearl Harbor created a special animosity toward the Japanese, but the depiction of the Japanese as warlike and subhuman owed something to a long tradition of fear of the so-called yellow peril and a distrust of all Asians. The movies, magazine articles, cartoons, and posters added to the image of the Japanese soldier or pilot with a toothy grin murdering innocent women and children or shooting down helpless Americans. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Time magazine explained to Americans how they could distinguish our Asian friends the Chinese "from the Japs." "Virtually all Japanese are short, Japanese are seldom fat; they often dry up with age," Time declared. "Most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles. Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard-heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait. The Chinese expression is likely to be more kindly, placid, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant." The racial stereotype of the Japanese played a role in the treatment of Japanese Americans during the war. Some prejudice was shown against German and Italian Americans, but Japanese Americans were the only group confined in concentration camps, in the greatest mass abridgment of civil liberties in American history. (886-7) The Japanese had long suffered from racial discrimination and prejudice in the United States. They were barred from intermarriage with other groups and excluded from many clubs, restaurants, and recreation facilities. Many worked as tenant farmers, fishermen, or small businessmen. Others made up a small professional class of lawyers, teachers, and doctors and a large number of land-owning farmers. Although many retained cultural and linguistic ties to Japan, they posed no more threat to the country than did the much larger groups of Italian Americans and German Americans. But their physical characteristics made them stand out as the others did not. After Pearl Harbor, an anti-Japanese panic seized the West Coast. A Los Angeles newspaper reported that armed Japanese where in Baja, California, ready to attack. Rumors suggested that Japanese fishermen were preparing to sow mines in the harbor, blow up tunnels, and poison the water supply. West Coast politicians and ordinary citizens urged the War Department and the president to evacuate the Japanese. The president capitulated and issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the evacuation in February 1942. "The continued pressure of a largely unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion, constituted a menace which had to be dealt with," General John De Witt argued, justifying the removal on military grounds. But racial fear and animosity, not military necessity, stood behind the order. (887) [Picture] Japanese Americans children on their way to a "relocation center." For many Japanese Americans, but especially for the children, the nightmare of the relocation camp experience would stay with them all their lives. (Library of Congress) |
| 1999a | - |
| 1999b | (762-4) In a society in which immigration laws discriminated against Asians by race, the war with Japan made life difficult for loyal Asian Americans of all backgrounds. Black and Hispanic workers still faced discrimination in shipyards and airplane factories as much as they had in peacetime industries. Italians and Asian Americans When World War II began, about 600,000 Italian aliens and 5 million Italian Americans lived in the United States. Most still lived in Italian neighborhoods centered around churches, fraternal organizations, and clubs. Some had been proud of Mussolini and supported Fascismo "Mussolini was a hero," recalled one Italian American, "a superhero. He made us feel special." Those attitudes changed abruptly after Pearl Harbor. During the war, Italian Americans unquestioningly pledged their loyalties to the United States. Enemy aliens. At first the government treated Italians without citizenship (along with Japanese and Germans) as "aliens of enemy nationality." They could not travel without permission, enter strategic areas, or possess shortwave radios, guns, or maps. By 1942 few Americans believed that German or Italian Americans posed any kind of danger. Eager to keep the support of Italian voters in the 1942 congressional elections, Roosevelt chose Columbus Day, 1942, to lift restrictions on Italian aliens. The 127,000 Japanese living in the United States, whether aliens or citizens, did not experience similar tolerance. Ironically; prejudices against them were least high in Hawaii, where the war with Japan had begun. Newspapers there expressed confidence in the loyalty of Japanese Americans, who in any case were crucial to the success of Hawaii's economy. Issei. The situation was far more volatile on the mainland. There, Japanese Americans remained largely separated from the mainstream of American life, often because state laws and local custom threw up complex barriers. In the western states where they were concentrated around urban areas, most Japanese Americans could not vote, own land, or live in decent neighborhoods. Approximately 47,000 Japanese aliens, known as Issei, were ineligible for citizenship under American law. Only their children could become citizens. Despite such restrictions, some Japanese achieved success in small businesses like landscaping, while many others worked on or owned farms that supplied fruits and vegetables to growing cities. (765) [Picture] The bleak landscape of this camp at Manzanar, California, was typical of the internment camps to which the government sent Japanese Americans. |
| 1999c | (829) War-related production finally ended the Great Depression, but it also required many Americans to move, especially to western states where the jobs were. This map shows major war-related industries and the states that gained and lost population. For Japanese Americans, relocation did not mean new jobs, but a loss of freedom as they were assigned to one of ten relocation centers across the country. (835) The shock of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor raised fears of further attacks, especially along the Pacific coast. On the night of December 7 and throughout the next week, West Coast cities reported enemy planes overhead and practiced blackouts. Phantom Japanese planes were spotted above San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Seattle, crowds hurled rocks at an offending blue neon light that defied the blackout and then, venting both fear and rage, rioted across the city. The Rose Bowl game between Oregon State and Duke was moved from the Bowl's home in Pasadena to Duke's stadium in Durham, North Carolina. Stores everywhere removed from their shelves goods made in Japan. Alarm and anger were focused especially on Japanese Americans. Rumors circulated wildly that they intended to sabotage factories and military installations in order to pave the way for the invasion of the West Coast. Within a week, the FBI had arrested 2,541 citizens of Axis countries: 1,370 Japanese, 1,002 Germans, and 169 Italians. Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that he did not believe it would be necessary to arrest more. Biddle soon changed his mind as anti-Japanese hysteria spread. Japanese-American Internment. The feelings against Japanese Americans were a product of long-standing racist attitudes and an immediate reaction to the war. . . . Fueling the hatred following the attack on Pearl Harbor were the actions of General John L. De Witt, commanding general of the Western Defense District. On December 7, he had seen Japanese planes over San Francisco where none existed, and he believed that everyone of Japanese heritage was a threat. Except for individual cases, the nation did not need to worry about Americans of Italian or German ancestry, he pronounced, but the Japanese were a different matter. "We must worry about the Japanese all the time " De Witt stated, "until he is wiped off the map." Unable to discover any acts of espionage or sabotage, California Attorney General Earl Warren nonetheless concluded that a plot existed and it was only a matter of time until "zero hour," when the enemy within would carry out its sinister plans. Echoing long-standing anti-Japanese feelings, California moved to "protect" itself. Japanese Americans were fired from state jobs and had their law and medical licenses revoked. . . . Although some doubted the reality of any threat from the Japanese-American community, few came forward to speak on its behalf or to protest the growing cry to relocate people of Japanese ancestry away from the coast. President Roosevelt was no exception. On February 19, 1942, he signed Executive Order #9066, which allowed the military to remove from official military areas anyone deemed a threat. When the entire West Coast was declared a military area, the eviction of the Japanese Americans from the region began. By the summer of 1942, more than 110,000 Nisei and Issei had been transported to ten internment camps (see chapter-opening map). When tested in court, the Executive Order was upheld by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944). (835) Nisei: A person born in America of parents who emigrated from Japan. Issei: A Japanese immigrant to the United States. Executive Order #9066: Order of President Roosevelt in 1942 authorizing the removal of "enemy aliens" from military areas; it was used to isolate Japanese Americans in internment camps. Internment camps: Camps to which more than 110,000 Japanese Americans living in the West were moved soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. (836) [Picture] In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed an order sending all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to internment camps. This photo shows a young boy, with a chocolate bar and comic books, awaiting transportation to one of the ten camps. FDR Library. |