Transcript Japanese Internment

Evacuation:
Japanese Internment
(www.usatoday.com)
Pearl Harbor’s Impact on the
Japanese
Anti-Japanese sentiments existed in the United
States for several decades prior to the attack on
Pearl Harbor.
 On December 7, 1941, the United States naval
base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan,
resulting in the U.S. entry into WWII.
 During that time, more than 119,000 people of
Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American
citizens, were living in California, Washington,
and Oregon.

Executive Order 9066



President Franklin D.
Roosevelt signed
Executive Order No. 9066
in February of 1942.
Executive Order No. 9066
empowered the U.S.
Army to designate areas
from which "any or all
persons may be
excluded."
The attack of Pearl
Harbor shocked the
American public, resulting
in widespread hysteria
and paranoia.
Those of Japanese
ancestry living on
the West Coast
were to be
relocated.
 More than 112,000
were forced to
“relocation
centers”.

 March
1942
24,
 The
first
Civilian
Exclusion Order
issued by the
Army
(www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od9066ph.html)


Fear of disloyalty on the part
of any Issei or Nisei was
common.
– Issei: those born in Japan,
regarded by the U.S.
government as ineligible
for U.S. citizenship.
– Nisei: those born in the US
to Japanese parents, thus
U.S. citizens.
1/3 of the population of Hawaii
was comprised of those of
Japanese descent. Many of
them were not interned,
however the islands were
placed under martial law.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/23-0306a.gif
Japanese near trains during Relocation
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/23-0307a.gif
Housing in a Japanese Relocation camp
Internment

Japanese assets were
frozen after the attack
on Pearl Harbor,
making it difficult for
many Japanese
Americans to move
from the West Coast.
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/japan/map4.jpg
Japanese Internment Camp Locations
War Relocation Authority(WRA)
Centers
Elsewhere in the Hemisphere
Canada carried out its own mass
evacuation of both citizens and aliens.
 22,000 residents with Japanese ancestry
lived in British Columbia; ¾ of them held
Canadian citizenship.
 At the end of the war, thousands of
Japanese Canadians were deported*

Latin America
Brazil left its 250,000 Japanese residents
alone.
 Mexico created a 62 mile zone around its
coasts and borders- All Japanese were
removed from this area.
 Peru sent 1,800 Japanese residents to
detention camps in Texas and confiscated
businesses that belonged to Japanese
residents.

Alberto Fujimori
After WWII the Japanese Peruvians in
Texas were threatened with deportation to
Japan because they had entered the US
without proper visas and Peru refused to
readmit them.
 Half a century later (in 1990) the people
of Peru elected Alberto Fujimori to be their
president ;)

Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara speaking of
the Terminal Island evacuation

"It was really cruel and harsh. 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
without the slightest compunction in my
heart.".
from Children of the Camps

"I remember the soldiers marching us to
the Army tank and I looked at their rifles
and I was just terrified because I could
see this long knife at the end . . . I
thought I was imagining it as an adult
much later . . . I thought it couldn't have
been bayonets because we were just little
kids."
Life in Internment Camps

"In the detention
centers, families lived
in substandard
housing, had
inadequate nutrition
and health care, and
had their livelihoods
destroyed: many
continued to suffer
psychologically long
after their release"
(http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/in
dex.html)
(www.trumanlibrary.org/.../20-2311a.htm)

"In desert camps, the
evacuees met severe
extremes of
temperature. In
winter it reached 35
degrees below zero,
and summer brought
temperatures as high
as 115 degrees.
Rattlesnakes and
desert wildlife added
danger to discomfort."
(http://www.nps.gov/manz/hrs/hrst.htm)

(http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/ca
mps.html)

In 1988, Congress implemented the Civil
Liberties Act, apologizing on behalf of the nation
for the "grave injustice" done to persons of
Japanese ancestry. Congress declared that the
internments had been "motivated largely by
racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure
of political leadership" and authorized $20,000
payments to Japanese Americans who had
suffered injustices during World War II.
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamabout.html)
Issues to consider
1. After the 9/11 attacks, should the
government have detained people of Arab
heritage or Muslim belief?
 2. Are there circumstances that would
make your response different? For
example, if the person was not a citizen, if
his or her parents were not citizens, or if
the person belonged to a radical political
group, etc.?

3. What alternatives to Japanese-American
relocation camps do you think President
Roosevelt should have tried?
 4. Could you ever see internment of a
minority group in the United States again?
