1. Japanese-American Internment
7th Grade Humanities

2. The Effects of Pearl Harbor
Americans suspicious of Japanese
Afraid Japanese were spies or saboteurs
Fear of Japanese invasion on the Pacific Coast

3. Executive Order 9066
After the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.
This act was based on a person’s ethnicity. It permitted the military to bypass the constitutional rights of American citizens in the name of “national defense.”
The order excluded persons of Japanese ancestry then living on the West Coast from living and working in certain locations.

4. Fright and Horror Traumatic forced evacuation from homes
Incarceration of most Japanese-Americans (most of whom were U.S. citizens or legal residents)

5. Headlines appear announcing round up along the West Coast

6. Japanese-American citizens were escorted to the camps by armed guards

7. Fear: Let’s Throw ‘em in Jail!
They were detained (imprisoned) for up to 4 years
They were forced to live in bleak, remote camps behind barbed wire and under the surveillance of armed guards.

8. Camp Minidoka – people from Seattle were sent here

9. Life in the Camps Lived in barracks with the whole family in one room
No furniture except army cots and a pot bellied stove
Ate at dining hall cafeteria-style

11. What Happened There? Life was boring
No contact with outside world – spies, remember?
Camps were run by the detainees with the Army there as guards
Children attended school, people got married, but lives were on hold.

14. The 442 Regiment
Japanese-Americans from the camps enlisted in the Army to show loyalty to the USA
They were the most decorated unit in WWII
Earned 18,000 medals in combat in 2 years

15. Did they have rights?
Japanese American internment raised questions about the rights of American citizens as embodied in the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

16. The US government apologizes
In 1983 it was determined the Japanese incarceration was not justified by military necessity
In 1990 all living camp survivors were awarded $20,000 by the US government as an apology for their treatment during WWII.

17. Can this happen again? What do you think?
Have we, as a country, learned from this injustice to our citizens?
How do you stop stereotyping of groups based on appearance?