The Japanese American Internment

U.S. Legislation – Specific to Asian Americans 1878 Chinese are ineligible for naturalization Japanese are ineligible for naturalization California passes alien land law prohibiting "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from buying land or leasing it for longer than three years Immigration Act denies entry to virtually all Asians.

It all happened so quickly. Japanese Americans on the West Coast of the United States had made lives for themselves in spite of discrimination, but on December 7, 1941, everything changed. To the panicked people after the attack on Pearl Harbor, every person of Japanese descent could be a potential spy.

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that moved nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans into 10 isolated relocation centers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.

Japanese American Internment Camps in the U.S.

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Those accused of a crime shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. These protections are guaranteed in the 5th and 6th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Who were interned? Anyone with “one drop of Japanese blood” – even orphaned infants Korean-Japanese, Chinese-Japanese, Filipino-Japanese, Mexican-Japanese, Native Hawaiian-Japanese, Cherokee- Japanese, Caucasian-Japanese, etc.

Executive Order 9066

Waiting for Relocation

Manzanar Classroom

Manzanar Mess Hall – 1942

Typical Barracks Room at Manzanar

Farming at Manzanar

Orphanage at Manzanar

Typical Internment Camp

Terms Issei – first generation Japanese American (born outside of the U.S.) Nisei – second generation Japanese American (born in U.S. to immigrant parents)

Monument to the 100 th Battalion & 442 nd Regiment In seven major campaigns in Europe this all-Nisei unit, made up of both volunteers and draftees, suffered nearly 10,000 casualties with some 800 of its members killed or dying of wounds later.

Preparing to Leave Manzanar

Remains of a security fence at Manzanar

U.S. Legislation – Specific to Asian Americans Congress overrides President Truman’s veto and legalizes citizenship for Japanese immigrants Immigration Law abolishes "national origins" as basis for immigration. Asian countries now on equal footing President Gerald Ford rescinds Executive Order 9066.

U.S. Legislation – Specific to Asian Americans  Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concludes the internment was a "grave injustice" and that Executive Order 9066 resulted from “racial prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership."  The U.S. House of Representatives votes 243 to 141 to make an official apology to Japanese Americans and to pay each surviving internee $20,000 in reparations.  The U.S. Senate votes (67%) to support redress for Japanese Americans.  President George Bush signs into law an entitlement program to pay each surviving Japanese American internee $20,000.

Sources Japanese American Citizens League. 21 May National Park Service. 21 May ar/89manzanar.htm Teaching Tolerance. 25 May

Why should you care? All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. (Edmund Burke, Irish political philosopher)

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. Martin Niemöller