Internment of Japanese Americans

The internment of Japanese Americans refers to the forced removal and confinement of approximately 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 incarceration camps in desolate areas of California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas during World War II. The uprooting commenced after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, shortly after Japan's military attacked Pearl Harbor. The order allowed for the exclusion of anyone of Japanese descent, citizen or alien, from western areas of the United States. Although military necessity was cited as the justification for the mass removal of Japanese Americans, a later government commission investigation revealed no evidence of this need and attributed the internment to racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and the failure of political leaders. Germany and Italy also threatened the Allies, yet only Americans of Japanese heritage were forced en masse into camps and imprisoned for an average of two to three years. More than two thirds were U.S. citizens.

[Page 270]With little time or information to prepare for removal, families took only what they could carry. Most were moved to temporary assembly centers, where they were confined for several months at fairgrounds and racetracks before being transferred to internment camps. The permanent camps were situated in harsh desert or swamp areas of the interior, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guard towers. Privacy was rare. Entire families lived in a single room within a barrack without plumbing or electricity, and eating, bathing, and laundering took place in communal facilities. Camps eventually developed schools, hospitals, and newspapers, but they constantly faced insufficient supplies and a severe shortage of medical personnel. Japanese Americans tried to make the most of their situation, but fear and uncertainty bred tensions among themselves and with the camp administration. One critical conflict concerned a registration procedure that was devised to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans. The registration required the incarcerated to indicate their willingness to serve in the armed forces of the United States and to swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and forswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor. The ambiguity of the questions and anxiety over how their responses would be used led to serious divisions among the incarcerated. Disagreement also arose about the role that interned Japanese Americans should take in the government's military and draft orders. Aspects of both conflicts persisted long after the end of the war.

Some of those who were U.S. citizens were permitted to leave the camps during the war, but the rapid release and resettlement of the others did not occur until 1944. All but one camp had closed by January 1946.

During the 1970s, Japanese Americans actively began pursuing an apology and reparations from the federal government for their wartime incarceration. The 1980 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians thoroughly reviewed the facts and circumstances surrounding the internment. It concluded that there had been no military necessity for the internment and recommended that the government apologize and pay monetary redress to those who had been wrongfully incarcerated. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 eventually provided $20,000 redress and an official apology for each of the 60,000 surviving internees. Letters and accompanying payments were sent beginning in 1990.

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