Japanese American Internment: The Dark Chapter of American History

1. Japanese American Internment Essential Questions: 1. Why were Japanese-Americans interned during World War II? 2. What occurred after Executive Order 9066?

2. Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 USS Arizona

3. Why were J-Americans Interned? • Ethnicity was the cause…not because of a threat to US security • Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were considered “subversive” • They were on the coast and thus too close to Japan

4. Newspapers add fuel to the fire • Ugly stories ran to support anti-Japanese feelings

5. Executive Order 9066 • February 19, 1942 • Gave the Army the complete authority to remove Japanese immigrants and American citizens alike from the Pacific coast • Justified as necessary for national security

6. Executive Order 9066 • More than 110,000 Japanese Americans shipped to “relocation centers” • Relocation center = prison camp • Charges never files against Japanese Americans

7. Relocation • Internees were taken from their homes • They lost their possessions—forced to sell homes and businesses

8. Relocation in Stages • 1st phase: internees transported on trains /buses under military guard to the temporary detention centers. • Temporary centers were built on race tracks, fairgrounds, or livestock pavilions. Prisoners lived in livestock stalls or windowless shacks that were crowded w/out ventilation, electricity, and sanitation facilities. Food was often spoiled; shortage of food and medicine. • 2nd phase: approximately 500 deportees daily moved to permanent concentration camps. Camps were in remote, uninhabitable areas. In the desert camps, daytime temperatures often reached 100 + degrees. Sub-zero winters were common in the northern camps.

9. Internment camp locations

10. Key Terms for Japanese Americans • Issei: First generation Japanese immigrants in US • Nisei: Second generation Japanese-Americans—2/3 of internees • Sansei: Third-generation Americans. Neither they nor their parents had ever known any other life than their life in the United States. • Thousands joined the armed forces—many as part of the 442nd Regimen.

11. Manzanar

12. Life in the Camps • The internment camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. • Armed guards patrolled the perimeter and were instructed to shoot anyone attempting to leave. • Many families were assigned to one barrack and lived together with no privacy. • A demonstration in Manzanar over the theft of food by personnel led to violence in which two died and many were injured.

13. Life in the Camps • The prisoners worked 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. • Supported the war effort.

14. Mess Hall

15. A Room in Camp

16. The Fight for Justice • Japanese Americans fought in the courts and in Congress • Korematsu v. United States: 1944, Supreme Ct. decided that forced evacuation was justified as a “military necessity” • Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) worked to have the government compensate those who had lost property

17. Korematsu and Rosa Parks

18. Redress & Reparations • The Bill passed (under President Ronald Reagan) 1988 • Surviving internees were given $20,000 in 1990 and an official apology from the President (George H. Bush) • “We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.”

19. Manzanar Monument Manzanar National Monument: The best-preserved of the ten camps where Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II.