Japanese Internment Camps

During World War II, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which made citizens scared that Japan would soon attack the United States. This produced tragic results for Japanese American because frightened citizens soon began to suspect that the Japanese Americans would help their country and attack from the inside. In 1942, the War Department called for the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans in Hawaii. General Delos Emmons stopped this because 37% of the people in Hawaii were Japanese Americans and evacuating them would destroy the economy in Hawaii. Soon, however,  1% of the Japanese American population in Hawaii (1,444 people) was forced into internment camps. 

Internment did not stop in Hawaii. On the West Coast,  prejudice began too grow. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt sign an order requiring the removal and relocation of all Japanese Americans in California and parts of Oregon, Arizona, and  Washington. Two-thirds of the people rounded up were Nisei (second generation Japanese, born in America). Many Nisei joined the armed to fight in World War II and did not have to go to the Internment Camps. No charges were filed on the Japanese Americans, but they were forced to sell their homes, businesses, and all their belongings for less than their value. 

Many Japanese Americans fought for their freedom with no luck. After the war, however, the Japanese American Citizens League pushed the government to return the belongings of all those sent to the camps. Congress authorized the spending of $38 million for the cause ( less than a tenth of their actual losses). In 1978, payment of reparations for each individual that went to the camps was paid and in 1988, every Japanese American that was relocated was paid $20,000. 

In the end, what was done to the Japanese Americans was a nation embarrassment and, hopefully, was a good learning experience for America as well.

-Alice W