Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at 13th and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. ("Oakland")
“There is no possible way of separating the loyal from the disloyal... when we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that will test the loyalty of them... but when we deal with the Japanese we are in an entirely different field and we cannot form any opinion that we believe to be sound.” — Earl Warren, Attorney General of California, 1942. ("QUOTATIONS")
Government Exclusion Order in California directing the removal of Americans of Japanese ancestry ("San-Francisco")
The Japanese-American Mochida family awaits their travel to an internment facility in the American Midwest ("Danielle")
Amache Relocation Center, near Granada Colorado ("Granada")
On February 19, 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to internment camps located in the interior of the United States ("Japanese-American Internment"). Amidst the Pacific war against the Japanese during World War II, the United States became embroiled in an era of racism and xenophobia, and reactionary anti-foreignism. Despite a lack of any concrete evidence whatsoever, Japanese-Americans were suspected of maintaining loyalty to their ancestral homeland ("Japanese-American Internment"). Anti-Japanese paranoia would soon sweep the country. In the eyes of the President, the large Japanese-American population on the west coast presented a security risk in the event of a Japanese mainland invasion.
The tone of Executive Order No. 9066 had been "carefully neutral" and had designated the creation of "military areas" throughout the United States, under the administration of the War Department, of which anyone who was deemed a danger to the state would be excluded ("Civil Rights"). The specific target of the Order was Japanese-Americans, of which 110,000 lived on the west coast alone, alone with a few thousand German and Italian-Americans ("Civil Rights"). Interestingly, the millions of German and Italian-Americans who also claimed ancestral heritage from an Axis power were not interned, and were free to continue their lives as usual. The Japanese-Americans were uniquely and blatantly singled out from all other minorities.
One month later, the actual "exclusion order" was released, giving "all persons of Japanese ancestry" barely a wee to collect necessities, put affairs in order and report to" control centers," where over a hundred thousand citizens and long-term resident aliens were cataloged and put on trains to ten internment camps ("Dresner"). Before internment, most of the Japanese-Americans were in a mad rush to sell almost all of their worldly possessions, as they were not sure that their goods would be there for them once they returned, causing their properties and inventories to be sold at only a fraction of their value ("Japanese-American"). ("Japanese-American"). In the rush to sell their goods, All people of Japanese ancestry – including those with only 1/16th Japanese blood – were given one week to settle their affairs ("Civil Rights").
These internment camps were hastily made, isolated, and consisted of primitive barracks and facilities ("Dresner"). Almost two-thirds of these internees were Nisei or second-generation American-Japanese that were born in America ("Japanese-American Internment"). A number of these Japanese-American internees were also U.S. military veterans ("Japanese-American Internment").
Interestingly, the 158,000 Japanese-Americans of Hawaii would never be interned over the course of World War II ("Civil Rights"). They were never interned for a number of reasons. First of all, the wealthy Hawaiian landowners depended on Japanese-American laborers for their sugar and pineapple plantations ("Civil Rights"). Removing these Japanese-Americans would prove to be catastrophic to the Hawaiian economy, of which sugar and pineapple plantations consisted a large part of. Secondly, a massive American military presence would be staged their over the course of World War II, relieving American government fears of an armed Japanese-American rebellion ("Civil Rights"). Japanese-Americans of Hawaii would live life normally for the course of World War II ("Civil Rights").
110,000 Japanese-Americans were soon herded into ill-equipped and over-crowded assembly centers at stockyards, fairgrounds, and racetracks, assigned numbers, and subsequently reassigned to one of ten internment camps ("Civil Rights"). These ten internment camps included Amache in Colorado, Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Gila River and Poston in Arizona, Minidoka in Idaho, Jerome and Rowher in Arkansas, Topaz in Utah and Manzanar and Tule Lake in California ("Civil Rights").
Japanese-Americans were soon insulted with forced questionnaires regarding their allegiance to the United States as soon as they arrived at the internment camps ("Dresner"). Over one-fifth of Japanese-American draft-age males would answer "no" to questions regarding their willingness to serve in the American military during the war, or their "unqualified allegiance to the United States", setting themselves up for further persecution and unfair treatment while staying at the internment camp ("Dresner").
Life in the internment camps was not easy, and was often either extremely hot or extremely cold in the ill-suited weather conditions of the American-Midwest ("Japanese-American"). The food was mass produced army-style grub, and the internees knew that if they tried to flee, they would be shot and killed by the armed guards that patrolled the camps around the clock ("Japanese-American"). Internment of Japanese-Americans would continue until the end of World War II, as all internment camps were eventually dissolved.