The Question

1. The Question “Is it ever permissible to intern American immigrants or American citizens during a national emergency?” Explain your answer.

2. The Japanese American Internment

3. Read the quote ~ What does it parallel? • “ I remember my mother wrapping a blanket around me and my pretending to fall asleep so she would be happy, though I was so excited I couldn't sleep.  I hear there were people herded into the HastingsParklike cattle.  Families were made to move in two hours.  Abandoned everything, leaving pets and possessions at gun point . . . ."— Joy Kogawa

4. The Japanese American Internment ~Following Japan’s attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, a fear of more Japanese attacks caused President Roosevelt to sign an order that resulted in the forced internment and relocation to isolated desert areas of anyone living in the west coast area that was of Japanese ancestry. ~The confinement of these Japanese-Americans would last over 2 years.

5. Executive Order 9066 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 in February of 1942. Executive Order No. 9066 empowered the U.S. Army to designate areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded."

6. “Relocation” Begins • Those of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were to be relocated. • During that time, more than 119,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, were living in California, Washington, and Oregon. • One third of the population of Hawaii was comprised of those of Japanese descent, thus many of them were not interned, however the islands were placed under martial law.

7. Racism a Driving Force “Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!”

9. Internment Camp • Internment refers to the forced imprisonment and relocation of a group of people. • How does some thing like this happen? • It happens when people in power remove a minority group from the general population and the rest of the society lets it happen.

10. Comparing the Japanese American Internment Camps to Nazi Concentration Camps . . . The transport . . .

11. Internment Camps

12. Concentration Camps

13. Internment Camps Close in 1945 • President Gerald Ford issued Proclamation 4417 in 1976, which apologized to Japanese Americans for interment during World War II. • In 1988, Congress implemented the Civil Liberties Act, apologizing on behalf of the nation for the "grave injustice" done to persons of Japanese ancestry. Congress declared that the internments had been "motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." President Ronald Reagan would then sign a law which authorized $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who had suffered injustices during World War II. • In 1990 President George Bush sent a letter of apology to all Interned Japanese Americans.