japanese internment conclusion essay

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What was the internment of Japanese Americans?

Where were japanese american internment camps, why were japanese americans interned during world war ii, what was life like inside japanese american internment camps, what was the cost of japanese american internment.

Japanese American internment

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• HistoryNet - Japanese Internment Camps: America’s Great Mistake
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Japanese American internment was the forced relocation by the U.S. government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II , beginning in 1942. The government’s action was the culmination of its long history of racist and discriminatory treatment of Asian immigrants and their descendants that boiled over after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor .

Japanese American internment camps were located mainly in western U.S. states. The first internment camp in operation was Manzanar , located in California. Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans for varying periods of time in California , Arizona , Wyoming , Colorado , Utah , and Arkansas .

After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor , the U.S. War Department suspected that Japanese Americans might act as espionage agents for Japan , despite a lack of evidence. John J. McCloy , the assistant secretary of war, who oversaw the internment program, prioritized national security over civil liberties expressed in the Constitution . He justified his actions by saying he considered the Constitution “just a scrap of paper.”

Conditions at Japanese American internment camps were spare, without many amenities. The camps were ringed with barbed-wire fences and patrolled by armed guards, and there were isolated cases of internees being killed. Generally, however, camps were run humanely. Residents established a sense of community, setting up schools, newspapers, and more, and children played sports. Learn more.

The cost of internment to Japanese Americans was great. Because they were given so little time to settle their affairs before being shipped to internment camps , many were forced to sell their houses, possessions, and businesses well below market value to opportunistic Euro-Americans. When released, many Japanese Americans had very little to return to except discrimination .

Japanese American internment , the forced relocation by the U.S. government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II . That action was the culmination of the federal government’s long history of racist and discriminatory treatment of Asian immigrants and their descendants that had begun with restrictive immigration policies in the late 1800s.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941, the U.S. War Department suspected that Japanese Americans might act as saboteurs or espionage agents, despite a lack of hard evidence to support that view. Some political leaders recommended rounding up Japanese Americans, particularly those living along the West Coast, and placing them in detention centres inland. A power struggle erupted between the U.S. Department of Justice , which opposed moving innocent civilians, and the War Department , which favoured detention. John J. McCloy , the assistant secretary of war, remarked that if it came to a choice between national security and the guarantee of civil liberties expressed in the Constitution , he considered the Constitution “just a scrap of paper.” In the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, more than 1,200 Japanese community leaders were arrested, and the assets of all accounts in the U.S. branches of Japanese banks were frozen.

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, approximately 125,000 Japanese Americans lived on the mainland in the United States . About 200,000 immigrated to Hawaii , then a U.S. territory. Some were first-generation Japanese Americans, known as Issei , who had emigrated from Japan and were not eligible for U.S. citizenship. About 80,000 of them were second-generation individuals born in the United States ( Nisei ), who were U.S. citizens. Whereas many Issei retained their Japanese character and culture , Nisei generally acted and thought of themselves as thoroughly American.

In early February 1942, the War Department created 12 restricted zones along the Pacific coast and established nighttime curfews for Japanese Americans within them. Individuals who broke curfew were subject to immediate arrest . The nation’s political leaders still debated the question of relocation, but the issue was soon decided. On February 19, 1942, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 , which gave the U.S. military authority to exclude any persons from designated areas. Although the word Japanese did not appear in the executive order , it was clear that only Japanese Americans were targeted, though some other immigrants, including Germans, Italians, and Aleuts , also faced detention during the war. On March 18, 1942, the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA) was established. Its mission was to “take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war.”

On March 31, 1942, Japanese Americans along the West Coast were ordered to report to control stations and register the names of all family members. They were then told when and where they should report for removal to an internment camp . (Some of those who survived the camps and other individuals concerned with the characterization of their history have taken issue with the use of the term internment , which they argue is used properly when referring to the wartime detention of enemy aliens but not of U.S. citizens, who constituted some two-thirds of those of Japanese extraction who were detained during the war. Many of those who are critical of the use of internment believe incarceration and detention to be more appropriate terms.) Japanese Americans were given from four days to about two weeks to settle their affairs and gather as many belongings as they could carry. In many cases, individuals and families were forced to sell some or all of their property, including businesses, within that period of time.

Some Euro-Americans took advantage of the situation, offering unreasonably low sums to buy possessions from those who were being forced to move. Many homes and businesses worth thousands of dollars were sold for substantially less than that. Nearly 2,000 Japanese Americans were told that their cars would be safely stored until they returned. However, the U.S. Army soon offered to buy the vehicles at cut-rate prices, and Japanese Americans who refused to sell were told that the vehicles were being requisitioned for the war.

After being forcibly removed from their homes, Japanese Americans were first taken to temporary assembly centres. From there they were transported inland to the internment camps (critics of the term internment argue that these facilities should be called prison camps ). The first internment camp in operation was Manzanar , located in east-central California . Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans for varying periods of time in California, Arizona , Wyoming , Colorado , Utah , and Arkansas .

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Japanese Internment Camps

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 17, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066 . From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, would be incarcerated in isolated camps. Enacted in reaction to the Pearl Harbor attacks and the ensuing war, the incarceration of Japanese Americans is considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century.

Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon—states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt’s executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people—the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity 

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people—one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii—were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren , declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon , 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico , prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center , tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen’s League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration. 

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center , 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to  Tule Lake Segregation Center  in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.  

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment . 

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California’s Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the  Supreme Court decision,  Ex parte Mitsuye Endo . In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority “has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure.”

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Japanese Relocation During World War II . National Archives . Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord . Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico . Smithsonian Institute .

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Collection Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers, 1942 to 1946

December 7, 1941.

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leading the U.S. to enter World War II.

February 19, 1942

President Franklin D. Roosevelts signs Executive Order 9066, providing for the exclusion of any person from any area at the discretion of the military.

March 2, 1942

General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, divides parts of the West Coast into Military Area 1 and Military Area 2, from which people of Japanese ancestry would be excluded.

March 18, 1942

The War Relocation Authority is established to oversee the relocation of Japanese-Americans and relocation centers.

March 24, 1942

The first Civilian Exclusion Order is issued by the Army, giving families one week to prepare for removal from their homes.

April 11, 1942

Manzanar Free Press begins publication at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California.

June 2, 1942

All Japanese in Military Area 1 in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona have been removed into Army custody.

December 17, 1944

Relocation orders are revoked and exclusion is lifted, effective January 2, 1945.

December 1945

All camps besides Tule Lake are closed.

The camp at Tule Lake closes.

August 10, 1988

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 is passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan. The Act apologizes for internment and provides for reparations to survivors.

Japanese Internment in the US During World War II Research Paper

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Intolerance demonstrated in the event

Impact of racism on relocation, economic impact, works cited.

A country becomes exposed to multiple threats from other nations at times of war. As a result, the government takes any necessary measures that it perceives to be vital in promoting the national security of the nation, including subordination of the constitutional rights of certain individuals for the collective safety of the population.

In the United States, one of the key functions of the government is to provide equal protection for the constitutional rights of all citizens. Issues are therefore, raised during a wartime, with regard to individual liberty and collective security (Daniels 12).

Some questions were raised due to the temporary sacrifice of a particular group of people, the Japanese, with the intention of national survival. The issues raised were a result of the attack by Japanese aircraft against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. These questions were associated with two cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court within the context of World War II: Hirabayashi v. United States and Korematsu v. United States (Okihiro 62).

The American naval forces on Hawaii were devastated by the Japanese attack on pearl harbour. Some of the damage caused by the Japanese included the destruction of five American battleships and three cruisers, as well as the death of over 2,200 and injuries on over 1,100 military personnel. The then president was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who re-assured the public that the US would retaliate against the Japanese, which led to their entry in to the World War II (Robinson 29).

The Japanese moved fast to occupy the territories previously in the hands of the US, and the more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the west coast raised issues for the president’s cabinet. As a result, general DeWitt wanted to relocate all of them to the interior of the country, where they could be kept from getting in touch with the enemy (Irons 22).

The then U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle urged caution, since he believed that forcible relocation of the Japanese Americans would violate their due process rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. However, most of the Presidential advisers emphasized the importance of military necessity and national survival.

As a result, “President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, providing authority for military commanders to establish special zones from which civilians might be excluded for reasons of national defence, On February 22, 1942” (Robinson 33). The President based his order on the Espionage Act of 1918 and statutes enacted by Congress in 1940 and 1941 to enhance the chief executive’s wartime powers (Robinson 33).

On March 18, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9102 to establish the War Relocation Authority. This executive agency was empowered to relocate the people identified by military commanders under the provisions of the previously issued Executive Order 9066. More than 110,000 Japanese were commanded to abandon their dwellings in places that the military had identified as sensitive parts of the West Coast. Anti-Japanese frenzy in the United States since the beginning of the century fueled calls for removal (Unk 1).

About 45,000 Japanese nationals and 75,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were deprived of liberty and property without criminal charges or even a trial, in the period between 1942 and 1946 (Okihiro 64).

Due to their ancestry, all people of Japanese ancestry were expelled from their homes, and confined in inland detention camps; this did not apply to American citizens of German or Italian ancestry, who were on the same side as the Japanese during the war. The events that occurred marked one of the greatest blows to constitutional liberties on the American citizens (Okihiro 65).

There had been many previous instances of hostility upon the Japanese and other Asian immigration for many decades before the forceful eviction after the attack at pearl harbour. The attitude of the public was emphasized after the attack, during World War II. The reason why the west coast public was not sympathetic with the Japanese Americans is because the National Guard units from eleven western states were fighting in the Philippines, where they were tortured and starved by their Japanese captors (Daniels 17).

During the war, one of the key attributes in the policy of evacuation and resettlement was to protect the Japanese-Americans from population rage. There were many causes for the evacuation that had little to do with racism.

Peter Irons wrote level-headedly about this in 1983: “To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were present, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race…He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire….” (24).

There are a few Japanese Americans who lost their property during the mass eviction, to unscrupulous people, though the army tried to safeguard the evacuees’ property. For those who had crops, the yields were harvested and sold at favourable prices. The gains were then put in their bank accounts, for their access.

The fury directed at the Japanese Americans started in the nineteenth century, when the first immigrants arrived during the California Gold Rush (Unk 1). The discovery of gold in California led to a scramble for control of the gold mines and ultimately for control of the Territory of California.

About 25 percent of the miners in California during the Gold Rush came from China. The English speaking newcomers who had previously established dominance over the native, Spanish, and Mexican Californians were in no mood to tolerate further competition. Using acts of terrorism (e.g., mass murder and arson) the white newcomers drove the Chinese out of the mining areas (Unk 1).

The Japanese Americans were conditionally released, that is about 33% of them, between 1943 and 1944. College students were allowed to attend school, though they had to report to government officials. The young men and women were also released for military duty. The remaining 67% were not allowed to leave the camps for the whole duration of the war. The fathers lost their role as breadwinners, and the families fell apart since the children were controlled by the military.

The uncertainties of the situation that the Japanese Americans found themselves in led to some committing suicide (Murray and Daniels 53). Others died due to the harsh environment, and the lack of medical facilities. Communication channels were monitored by the camp administration, the Japanese language was banned at public meetings, and Buddhist religious practices were suppressed (Irons 24).

Other extreme measures like deportation, sterilization or stripping off the citizenship of the Japanese Americans were not pursued, though the events that took place had a lot to do with racism, and the attacks on pearl harbour provided the Americans with an opportunity to get rid of the Japanese Americans, and they went for it, going as far as offering them for exchange with American prisoners of war (Murray and Daniels 60).

Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice. New York: Atheneum, 1970. Print.

Irons, Peter. Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Murray, Alice Yang and Roger Daniels. What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.

Okihiro, Gary Y. Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Unk. The Exclusion of the Ethnic Japanese from the US West Coast in 1942. 1998. Web.

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The Supreme Court Ruled Wrong, Then Right, on Japanese American Internment

The only “precedent” for the proposed muslim registry is conflicted legal thinking.

Mitsuye Endo was a plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit that ultimately led to the closing of the concentration camps and the return of Japanese Americans to the west coast in 1945. Courtesy of Densho.

By Julian Lim | January 18, 2017

In 2014, a group of law students at the University of Hawaii asked Justice Antonin Scalia to comment on the Korematsu case, the infamous 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld Japanese American internment during World War II. “Well, of course, Korematsu was wrong,” he said. “But,” he added, “you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.” It may be wrong and void of justification, but, in an environment infused with fear, panic, and antipathy against a minority group, “that’s what happens,” Scalia observed. “It is the reality.”

That reality could be upon us shortly—any time after Donald Trump is inaugurated into the White House. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, Mr. Trump had called for the registering and tracking of American Muslims. Just after his election in November, the press and internet exploded with news that his transition team was seriously considering a Muslim registry. Then, members of his camp began to cite Japanese internment as precedent for a Muslim registry.

Carl Higbie, a prominent Trump supporter, gave an interview with the New York Times in which he conceded that the internment camps were “horrific,” but insisted that Korematsu serves as “historical, factual precedent to do things that are not politically popular and sometimes not right, in the interest of national security.” For many Americans familiar with Korematsu and the history of Japanese internment, such statements were shocking.

The Korematsu decision has long been widely discounted as precedent in legal circles and taught as a tragic failure of American values in history classes. By now, it is evident that the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans—three-quarters of whom were U.S. citizens, the rest immigrants who were not permitted to become citizens, and all of whom were interned without due process—was based on fear, panic, and racism.

Korematsu is widely acknowledged as a civil rights disaster. Earl Warren, who as Attorney General of California had been a leading proponent of internment, came to deeply regret his role. Scalia—commonly remembered as one of the most influential conservative justices to sit on the nation’s highest court—ranked Korematsu among the most egregious decisions in Supreme Court history, along with Dred Scott , while Justice Stephen Breyer has written that Korematsu has been so thoroughly discredited that it is hard to conceive of any future court referring to it favorably or relying on it.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, issuing an apology and compensation as redress for the wrongful internment of Japanese Americans. And in 2011, the Department of Justice—finally—officially conceded that it committed grave error in the Korematsu case 67 years prior when the government submitted false and incomplete evidence, and suppressed the fact that FBI and military investigations refuted claims of Japanese American disloyalty. This concession obliterated any lingering doubt over Korematsu ’s utter lack of value as legal precedent for interning American citizens.

Korematsu , in other words, is a lesson of what not to do.

This is not simply a case of hindsight. When the Korematsu Court decided to uphold the government’s decision to intern Japanese Americans as a “military necessity,” it did so even as the government was dismantling the internment policy. The rounding up and internment of Japanese Americans had begun in May 1942, but before the end of the year, many young Japanese Americans were released from the camps to attend colleges in the Midwest and the East, while others were released to provide much-needed labor, especially in the fields.

Never mind that the government never interned Japanese Americans en masse in Hawaii, which had the highest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country, and which was the physical location of the Pearl Harbor attack that triggered the mass incarceration. Concerned that the removal and exclusion of Japanese residents would cause economic ruin for the territory, officials rejected the idea of wholesale internment on the islands.

Then in early 1943, the government circulated the infamous “Loyalty Questionnaire,” with the hope of recruiting interned Japanese Americans into the military. The irony was not lost on the interned, who had been forced behind wire fences based on racialized notions of ancestry and disloyalty—in other words, suspected as persons incapable of ever fully becoming Americans—and then were asked to fight for the U.S. On February 1, 1943, President Roosevelt announced his decision to let Japanese Americans enlist, and more than 26,000 served in the U.S. Army during the war. On December 17, 1944, Roosevelt issued Public Proclamation No. 21, ordering the internment camps to be closed and all remaining Japanese Americans to be released.

The very next day —December 18, 1944—the Supreme Court released its Korematsu decision, upholding the constitutionality of the government’s internment policy and affirming the conviction of Fred Korematsu, 23-year-old Japanese American welder from San Leandro, California who had defied the government order to move to an internment camp. But that was not all.

On the same day, the Court also released its decision on another lesser-known but arguably more important case dealing with internment: Ex Parte Endo . Mitsuye Endo had lived in the California capital of Sacramento, worked for the California Department of Motor vehicles, was a practicing Christian, could neither speak nor read Japanese, and had a brother in the U.S. Army. Nonetheless she’d been subjected to the extreme discrimination all Japanese Americans were made to endure at the time, and had been forced into an internment camp.

In the Endo case, the Court unanimously ruled that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was “concededly loyal” to the United States. It stressed that “[a] citizen who is concededly loyal presents no problem of espionage or sabotage. Loyalty is a matter of the heart and mind, not of race, creed, or color. He who is loyal is, by definition, not a spy or a saboteur.” The Court found that as a loyal citizen, Endo was entitled to unconditional release from the internment camp.

It has never been clear to me why the case of Endo —the case which legally brought the internment camps to a close—has been so overshadowed by Korematsu . But if we are to call upon history to help us make decisions today, we need to look at the whole picture, and not rely upon selective memories. By the time the Supreme Court rendered its decisions, the government’s decision to intern Japanese Americans based on assertions of “military necessity” and wartime exigencies were directly undercut by its own actions.

Indeed, the same Court that seemingly upheld the internment of Japanese Americans in Korematsu affirmed in Endo the right of those very same Japanese Americans to not be detained and interned. One could distinguish the niceties of the different constitutional or legal bases underlying the two cases and varying outcomes, but the very need to make such fine jurisprudential distinctions, I would argue, points to the practical inconsistencies. The history that some are invoking as support for a Muslim registry is not at all what they think it is.

If the next administration tries to pass a Muslim registry, it will test our core values as a nation and as a people. Admittedly, historians have been a bit more wary of narratives about American exceptionalism, but one thing that historians—from the most conservative to the most liberal—have not backed away from is the Constitution, and the idea that America should live up to its foundational ideals. Fear, prejudice, racial and religious antipathy should never be the basis for government policy, at least not in a republic that has worked so hard for nearly two and a half centuries to protect and promote a Constitution cherished for its democratic values and commitment to freedom.

Inter arma enim silent leges . This was the ancient saying that Scalia frequently invoked to explain how bad history could still repeat itself. “In times of war, the law may fall silent.” But we, the people, can’t. Nunquam iterum –never again.

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Photo Essay: Japanese Americans Return to the West Coast After WWII Incarceration

January 2, 2020

The exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast during WWII came to an official end on January 2, 1945. By the end of the year, nine of the ten War Relocation Authority concentration camps had been shut down — although Japanese American “renunciants” and Japanese Latin Americans slated for deportation to Japan remained imprisoned even after the war’s end. On the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the end of Japanese American incarceration, we take a look back at some of the images from this moment in history.

By 1945, many Japanese Americans, particularly college- and working-age Nisei, had already left the camps to “resettle” in Midwest and East Coast hubs, which meant that the majority of those who remained were elders and families with young children for whom another forced move was a significant hardship. Incarcerees were ordered to leave and given just $25 and a one-way ticket home — but many had nothing to come back to.

Most returned to the West Coast without serious incident, but well-publicized discriminatory and terrorist actions greeted many returnees. Against this backdrop, Japanese Americans struggled to find housing and employment, and many turned to overcrowded hostels and government-run trailer parks as a last resort.

The extreme hardships of the immediate return to the West Coast eased for many over the next decade. By 1950, the Nikkei population on the West Coast was well over 80% of what it had been before the war, and before long Japanese Americans came to be seen as a “model minority” — although that image ignored the many, particularly Issei, who never recovered, as well as long-term cultural losses and psychological effects . As Brian Niiya writes in the Densho Encyclopedia , “Incarceration had not killed Japanese American communities—and Japanese American identity—but it had changed it in ways that wouldn’t be understood for many years.”

Adapted from Brian Niiya’s Densho Encyclopedia article “Return to the West Coast.” Read more: http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Return%20to%20West%20Coast/

[Header photo: Original caption: “Last of the residents of the Amache Relocation Center board the train at Granada for the journey to the west coast or to new homes elsewhere in the country.” Photo by Hikaru Iwasaki, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Categories: after camp , anniversary , photo essay

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Review of The Two Sides Argumentation Regarding Japanese Internment Camps

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Japanese Internment Essays Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Japan , Internment , America , Americans , Military , War , Family , Order

Words: 1100

Published: 03/08/2023

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Introduction

The Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prompted the United States to immediately declare war against Japan. The Pearl Harbor assault and the eventual participation of the US in the Second World War have a widespread impact, and this includes a detrimental effect on the lives of the Japanese Americans in the United States. A few weeks after both countries declared war against each other, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, with the directive to designate some parts of the West Coast under military jurisdiction. The Executive Order did not specifically mention the internment of the Japanese Americans, but it nevertheless gave the military the power to exclude the Japanese from the area.

The Directive for Relocation

The Executive Order granted an extensive power to the Secretary of War and military officials who did not hesitate to use it according to their own prerogative. Further, it also gave the military the authority to evacuate the people given a reasonable justification. Thus, after the passage of the EO, the War Department administered the extraction of the Japanese Americans from the West Coast, according to what they referred to as the necessities of military wartime. Accordingly, the power of EO 9066 was used to exclude all people of Japanese ancestry from the entire region of the West Coast. The reason for the eventual internment of people of Japanese ancestry can be traced from intelligence reports that was taken as an evidence of espionage activity among members of the Japanese community. While the report was said to be false, and was fabricated by people who have anti-Japanese sentiments, the Japanese remained to be the focus of the executive order. According to studies, some of the prejudices against the Japanese during that time were not generally related to the ongoing war. There were selfish reasons why the Japanese were singled out and interned; a portion of a letter sent to Congressman John Anderson indicated that white Americans thought that there is no way for the Japanese to assimilate with the white race. Some of them saw the war as an opportunity to eventually get rid of the Japanese, whom they thought as competitors in many aspects. Other primary documents indicated that some Americans did not like the Japanese and have hoped to get rid of them after the war. Nevertheless, some found it sensible to extract the Japanese Americans from the West Coast because of security risk should the Japanese military attack the American mainland. Upon learning about the order to evacuate, many Japanese Americans sold their properties, and the urgency of the order resulted to massive economic loss on the part of families who were forced to sell their belongings at a much cheaper price. At first, the Japanese people were requested to voluntarily comply with the order, but the military leaders thought it better to be in full control and made the order compulsory. The Japanese men were rounded up by the military, while the women were forced to sell their properties in just a few days. Many of the Japanese stayed in temporary relocation sites until he completion of ten internment camps in the more remote places of the country.

Life at the Internment Camps

The life in the internment camps was difficult, as families were packed to share tar-papered barracks. The relocation was described as cruel and harsh; about four to five families share a barrack, and a common area for their necessities. Children comprised a large number of the interned population, and some would later recount how soldiers, with their rifles marched them towards the internment camps. There was insufficient medical care at the camps, and some of the internees died due to inadequate medical attention and the stressed associated with being camped and watched by the military. Moreover, the incarcerees did not only contend with the inadequate housing and facilities, but they also have to deal with the extreme climate in the relocation sites. While medical personnels were assigned in the camps, overcrowding and the unsanitary conditions contributed to the increased number of diseases among the internees. While they were expected to live their lives normally, such as the demand to allow their children to go to school, it was difficult for the families to adjust to life in the internment camps. The American government expected the Japanese people to be self-sufficient, but starting life with little support and in an arid place like the relocation sites was not easy for the families who have nothing with them except a few basic possessions. Men were forced to accept menial tasks despite low wages, and women have to deal with the shame associated with sharing commodes that exposed them to others. The internment camp brought havoc to the traditional Japanese families, for example, family members no longer share their meals such that men shared meal times with other men while the mothers were left with the children. Sometime in 1943, the internees were required to prove their allegiance to the United States by requiring adults to answer the loyalty questionnaire. Those who were found to be disloyal were confined in separate a separate site in Tule Lake, in addition to other forms of discrimination.

Life After the Internment

It was in 1944 when the EO 9066 was finally rescinded, and those who were forced to confinement were to assimilate back into the society. Some Japanese Americans who felt resentment of their undue treatment relinquished their American citizenship, still others went back to integrate. Fresh from being confined and closely monitored by the military, the Japanese found it difficult to regain the economic loss associated with their more than two years of confinement. Moreover, it was found that it was only about more than ten years when the United States government started to provide reparation of the economic loss of the Japanese during their confinement. In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act as an expression of apology to the internees.

Significance of the Internment

After many years of examination, it was found that the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII was unjustifiable. For one, the allegation of Japanese espionage was never validated, and many of the internees were people who have already proven their allegiance to the country before the war. Nevertheless, the internment of the Japanese during that time shall serve as a lesson for all people and governments to ponder. Several studies were conducted to examine the merits of the forced confinement, and the compulsory internment of the Japanese Americans will serve as a basis to understand the roots, and consequences of such events.

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BUY THIS BOOK

2006 --> 2006 392 pages. $70.00

Hardcover ISBN: 9780804751476

Honorable Mention in the 2006 AAAS Book Award, sponsored by the Association for Asian American Studies.

This is a collection of the last essays by Yuji Ichioka, the foremost authority on Japanese-American history, who passed away two years ago. The essays focus on Japanese Americans during the interwar years and explore issues such as the nisei (American-born generation) relationship toward Japan, Japanese-American attitudes toward Japan's prewar expansionism in Asia, and the meaning of "loyalty" in a racist society—all controversial but central issues in Japanese-American history.

Ichioka draws from original sources in Japanese and English to offer an unrivaled picture of Japanese Americans in these years. Also included in this volume are an introductory essay by editor Eiichiro Azuma that places Ichioka's work in Japanese-American historiography, and a postscript by editor Chang reflecting on Ichioka's life-work.

About the authors

The late Yuji Ichioka was the founding father of the scholarly study of Japanese-American history. His book on the immigrant generation in America, The Issei: The World of the First-Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (1988), is considered a classic. He invented the term Asian American, and trained many of the scholars now teaching Asian American history at colleges and universities.

— H-Net Reviews

"Ichioka's ability to comprehend the complexity of the situation raises many fresh, thought-provoking quesitons in a field that appeared near saturation point." Japanese Studies

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Inscrutable Belongings

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Mandarin Brazil

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Nisei Naysayer

James Matsumoto Omura Edited by Arthur A. Hansen

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Edited by Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin

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