By Mandy Fischer

Japanese Internment Camps

Thesis

Decades of anti-Japanese sentiment ended in the forced removal of Japanese-Americans into

harsh internment camps.

Basics+ Pearl Harbor: December 14th, 1941

+ Executive Order 9066: February 19, 1942

Ordered the rounding up of 110,000 Japanese Americans to be placed in a “relocation center,” an internment camp.

Basics

+ Anti-Japanese sentiment due to long-time prejudice and recent bombing of Pearl Harbor

Basics

2/3 of interned Japanese were U.S. citizens

"Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of 'national security' were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age.“

- "Years of Infamy", Michi Weglyn

Camp Life

President Roosevelt himself called the relocation centers, “concentration camps.”

"In the detention centers, families lived in substandard housing, had inadequate

nutrition and health care, and had their livelihoods destroyed: many continued to

suffer psychologically long after their release"

"At Gila, there were 7,700 people crowded into space designed for 5,000. They were

housed in mess halls, recreation halls, and even latrines. As many as 25 persons lived

in a space intended for four."

- "Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians"

Camp Life

Government-issued supplies: + single room (20 x 25 ft) + a single light bulb + cots + mattresses + blankets+ potbellied stove (depending on the camp)

They were allowed to bring a single suitcase per person, weighing no more than 100 pounds.

Camp LifeTo make their living space more home-like and live-able, some made their own furniture out of scrap lumber and other scrap

material.

The Camps"In desert camps, the evacuees met severe

extremes of temperature. In winter it

reached 35 degrees below zero, and summer brought temperatures as

high as 115 degrees. Rattlesnakes and desert wildlife added danger to

discomfort.“

- "Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment

of Civilians"

The Camps

An excerpt from Lone Heart Mountain

by Estelle Ishigo

Estelle Ishigo was a Japanese-American who was forced into relocation.

She ended up at the Heart Mountain Camp in Wyoming, and wrote a 45 page book about her experiences.

This particular page gives a first-hand account of the substandard living conditions the internees faced during the winter.

The book ends with this thought-provoking story:“Two small boys sat on the log, coals glowed in the tub before them.

‘Are we Americans?’ asked one.‘No, we are not Americans,’ his friend answered.‘But if we were born here. If not Americans, what are we?’‘We are human beings.’‘Who are the Americans?’‘White people are the Americans.’”

Tule Lake, CA

May 27, 1942 to March 20, 1946Peak Population: 18,700

Most controversial of the 10 camps

+ Only segregated camp+ Ruled under martial law+ Overseen by the Army+ Holding place for potential enemies

Tule Lake, CA

Confusing Loyalty QuestionnaireQuestion 27:

“Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the UnitedStates on combat duty, wherever ordered?”

Question 28:“Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and

faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance

or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?”

Korematsu vs. United States+ Fred Kormatsu was 22 while smoking a cigarette outside a drug store waiting for his girlfriend in San Leandro, CA.

+ Charged with violating military orders aimed at Japanese-Americans residing on the West Coast

+ Military vs. constitutional rights

+ Kormatsu detained in Topaz, Utah while waiting for his case to reach the supreme court

Korematsu vs. United StatesThe Opinion of the Supreme Court Issued December 18th, 1944By Justice Hugo L. Black

Decision?+ Military order judged constitutional+ Korematsu found guilty of violating the evacuation order

“It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometime justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can…. Executive Order 9066…. Declared that ‘the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage.’…. In Hirabayashi v. United States…. We sustained a conviction obtained for violation of the curfew order… It was because we could not reject the finding of the military authorities that it was impossible to bring about an immediate segregation of the disloyal from the loyal that we sustained the validity of the curfew order as applying to the whole group. In the instant case, temporary exclusion of the entire group was rested by the military on the same ground…We uphold the exclusion order as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it. In doing so, we are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by it upon a large group of American citizens. But hardships are a part of war and war is an aggregation of hardships… Citizenship has its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and in time of war the burden is always heavier… The contention is that we must treat these separate order [for exclusion and for detention] as one and inseparable; that, for this reason, if detention in an assembly or relocation center would have illegally deprived the petitioner of his liberty, the exclusion order and his conviction under it cannot stand…. We cannot say… that his presence in that [assembly] center would have resulted in his detention in a relocation center… It is sufficient here to pass upon the [exclusion] order which petitioner violated. To do more would be to go beyond the issues raised, and to decide momentous questions not contained within the framework of the pleading or the evidence in this case… To cast this case in the outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue.”

Apologies1944: FDR repealed the Executive Order 9066

1945: The last internment camp was closed

1968: Government began reparations for property loss

1988: In the Civil Liberties Act, Congress approved formal payments of $20,000 to all survivors (about half)

1988: President Ronald Reagan offered an official apology