Japanese Internment ( )

Executive Order 9066 A black spot in America's history, rampant xenophobia led to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signature of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, By June 1, 1942, the War Relocation Authority took control of a hastily built Manzanar, and 11,061 resident aliens and U.S. citizens were processed and incarcerated behind strands of barbed wire and eight guard posts.

Generational Terminology Issei - Someone who immigrated from Japan (first generation) Nisei – Children born in America to Issei (second generation) Sansei –Children of Nisei (third generation) In Japanese: 1 = ichi; 2 = ni; 3 = san

A Short Time to Sell Everything When Executive Order 9066 was put into place, the Japanese Americans were forced to sell their belongings for very cheap prices in a matter of days. This photo shows a grocery store owned by a Japanese American.

Getting on the Bus to Manzanar…

Manzanar War Relocation Center Off US 395, just five miles south of Independence, CA Covering only one square mile, 36 blocks of wooden barracks would be home for some of the residents until September 1945.

Another view of the camp - the Sierra Nevada mountain range is in the background.

Why??? The camp was the first of ten created in 1942 to hold Japanese Americans who were living on the West Coast when America was forced into World War II by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The government feared that some Japanese Americans might still be loyal to Japan and transmit information about ship movements in and out of Navy bases along the West Coast.

A Manzanar Family Families were assigned to their own living spaces inside the buildings. The buildings were not very solidly built; camps were only intended to last for the duration of the war. One complaint of the residents was the lack of privacy. Walls between family spaces were often just sheets of cloth.

Families did their best to fix up their places to be as home-like as possible.

Guard Tower This photo shows the guard tower and barbed wire fence around the internment camp at Manzanar. Residents of the camp could not leave without special permission.

The View from the Guard Tower

Building a Community The forced evacuees strived to build a community, painting the barracks, planting fruit trees and gardens, and even digging small ponds in the hope of capturing some semblance of the pre-attack normalcy. At 4,000 feet, the harsh dry desert was worlds away from homes along the west coast. Schools were set up, and two classes of students graduated high school during Manzanar's existence. Catholic, Protestant and Buddhist Houses of Worship welcomed believers.

A “Town Hall” Meeting Although leaving the camps without permission was forbidden, residents were allowed to hold meetings to discuss problems and suggest ideas for improving life in the camps.

Cooperative Store

The Warehouse

Farming at Manzanar A potato field at Manzanar helped feed the residents. The camp also raised other crops as well as chickens and pigs. Residents were paid for their work on the farm and for work running the camp's various facilities.

Cabbages and Squash

Hog Farm and Factory

Attending School at Manzanar

Choir and Dress Making

Pre-School and Adult Education

Opportunities to Play Sports: Volleyball and Basketball

Football

Calisthenics and Baton Twirling

Watching a Baseball Game

Loyalty Questionnaire During the stay at the internment camps, all Japanese-Americans over the age of 17 were forced to complete a "loyalty questionnaire.” Question #27 asked them if they would be willing to become a part of the armed forces for the United States and go wherever the United States wanted to send them. Question #28 asked them about their "loyalties" to the Japanese emperor and to swear their loyalties to the United States.

Helping the War Effort Despite being uprooted from their homes and lives, the residents didn't become bitter or turn on their country. Many worked within the barbed wire at Manzanar's camouflage netting factory supporting the war effort. Others joined the service, serving as nurses or fighting with honor and bravery in Europe.

Camouflage Netting Factory

U.S. Naval Cadet Nurse

100 th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team Approximately 18,000 Nisei were sent off to fight in World War II. They fought in eight major battles all over Italy, France, and Germany. At Biffontaine, France, the soldiers fought their most famous battle, the Rescue of the Lost Battalion. The 100th/442nd suffered 800 casualties to rescue 211 Texans who had wandered into Nazi territory. The 442 nd Regiment, which was in heavy battle from January 1943 to the end of the war, is the most highly decorated unit in the United States military.

442nd Regimental Combat Team

Growing up in Manzanar

A new mother looks at her baby in the nursery

The Orphanage

Girls Hanging Out after School

Boys Looking at a Comic Book

Manzanar Cemetery 150 Japanese Americans died while interned at Manzanar, but only six are still buried in the cemetery. Most of the 150 people were cremated, and others were removed from the cemetery after the war.

Free to Go … Residents at Manzanar were allowed to leave when the war ended in Some refused to leave because they had nowhere to go and had to be forced out. Today the location is a National Historic Site, although only the camp cemetery, a stone monument, and a few other signs of the original camp remain.

Packing Up for Relocation

Reparations and Apology In 1988, Congress approved a law to give those who lived in the camps a payment of about $20,000 each, along with an official apology from the government. The apology stated that the relocation program was due in part to "race prejudice" and "war hysteria.”

Final Thoughts Many people consider the entire relocation program a disgrace to American values and an outrageous abuse of government power. Others, however, consider it an unfortunate but necessary precaution taken by a government suddenly thrust into a deadly world war. After 9/11, some worried it could happen again …

There's a plaque located at the site of another camp in Arizona. It simply reads: “May it serve as a constant reminder of our past so that Americans in the future will never again be denied their constitutional rights and may the remembrance of that experience serve to advance the evolution of the human spirit.”