Japanese Internment Camps

During World War II, the U.S. government ordered for thousands of Japanese-Americans to be forcibly relocated to detention camps. Although this was one of the most extreme measures against them, Asians had been facing racial discrimination ever since they started immigrating to the U.S. For example, in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act because many Americans blamed Chinese workers for the economic hardships and were concerned about maintaining white racial purity. Similarly, the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 stated that Japan would not allow any more people to emigrate to the United States. Later, in the 1922 Ozawa v. United States case, the Supreme Court ruled that Ozawa (who had lived in the U.S. for 20 years after immigrating from Japan) was ineligible for naturalization and citizenship. There was also an Asian Exclusion Act in the Immigration Act of 1924.

After a Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, all Japanese-Americans were labeled as dangerous. Even though there was no hard evidence to support this, the U.S. War Department claimed that the Japanese-Americans might work against the American effort by acting as saboteurs or espionage agents. While the War Department favored the idea of detention camps, the U.S. Department of Justice opposed moving innocent civilians. In response, John McCloy (the assistant secretary of war) remarked that it was much more important to protect national security than the civil liberties of the Constitution. 

In February 1942, the War Department established 12 restricted zones for Japanese relocation. Immediately after this, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which allowed the military to exclude any people from designated areas. Although the order did not explicitly mention Japanese-Americans, it was clearly intended to target them. In March, the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA) was created. It’s job was to take Japanese-Americans into custody, forbid them from buying land, and return them home after the war. From 1942 to 1945, a total of 10 Japanese internment camps opened up, and about 120,000 Japanese-Americans were held in them. Even American citizens of Japanese descent were taken, and they accounted for about 66% of the internees. In Hawaii, however, Japanese-Americans made up a significant portion of the population and they were crucial to the island’s economic health, so only the leaders of their communities were detained.

Camps were surrounded by barbed-wire fences and the Japanese-Americans lived in bare, uninsulated barracks. Armed guards constantly patrolled the fence and were told to shoot at anyone attempting to escape. Although they were tolling for Japanese-Americans, the camps were run fairly humanely, with only a few instances of internees being injured or killed. Residents often tried to create some sense of community by living in family groups and setting up schools, churches, etc. Both peaceful protests and legal fights arose as a result of Japanese internment. In the 1944 Korematsu v. United States case, the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional to evacuate and intern children of Japanese immigrants (who were born in the U.S.). However, around this time, the government was doing closer investigations and starting to free Japanese-American individuals who were classified as “loyal Americans.”

By December 1944, the government promised that relocation centers would be closed and internees would return home by the end of 1945. The last camp in Tule Lake, California ended up closing in March of 1946. Executive Order 9066 was officially repealed in 1976 by President Ford. The US Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988, which compensated over 80,000 Japanese-Americans for the ordeal.

http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Ozawa_v._United_States/

https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/gentlemens-agreement

https://www.britannica.com/event/Japanese-American-internment

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/45299