Historical Background about the Japanese American Internment
On December 7, 1941, American citizens watched in horror as their country was attacked on its own soil for the first time in history. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, it set off a wave of racism against the Japanese Americans who were currently residing on the West Coast. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor was only the tip of the iceberg. Since the late 1800s, Japanese Immigrants were discriminated against.
Especially after World War I, numerous anti-Asian sentiments arose. For instance, in
1922 in the case Ozawa vs. the U.S., the U.S. Supreme court ruled denied citizenship
(naturalization) to Japanese Americans because they were not “white.” Only two years later, the Immigration Act was passed that banned the admittance of Asian Immigrants into the United States. It would not be until 1965 until the number of Asian Immigrants increased again.
Nevertheless, the emotions that arose after the attack caused a wild fire of racial discrimination against the Japanese Americans, as all were now seen only as the
“enemy.” Only two days after the Pearl Harbor attack, 2,000 Issei (first generation
Japanese immigrants) leaders from Hawaii and the mainland United States were arrested and imprisoned by the United States government. Moreover the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (F.B.I.) warned Japanese Americans against possessing guns, cameras and radios. For the Japanese Americans, many of their jobs were related to fishing, so they needed such materials as two-way radios. Numerous male Issei were arrested for possession of these items and taken from their families without a word about where they were going or when they would see their family members again. Two months after the attack, the American community watched in silence as 120,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast were forced out of their homes and into internment camps for the remainder of the war. According to the Minidoka National Park website, 70% of the interned them were American citizens.
1
Historical Dates of the Japanese American Internment.

1940: Alien Registration Act declared that there was no specific distinction between Koreans and Japanese. According to Ronald Takaki’s
Strangers from a
Different Shore, the Act “classified Korean immigrants as subjects of Japan; after the United States declared war against Japan, the government identified Koreans here as “enemy aliens.” 2

November 7, 1941: Munson Report: President Franklin Roosevelt secretly requested an investigation of the possibility of an insurrection from the Japanese
Americans. The demand was given to Curtis Munson to investigate the concern.
Takaki explained that Munson’s research discovered such a threat was highly unlikely.
1
Burton, J., M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord. “Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II
Japanese American Relocation Sites.” National Park Service: Minidoka Internment. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce9.htm
(17 January 2001).
2 Takaki, Ronald. A History of Asian Americans: Strangers from a Different Shore, Boston: Back Bay
Books. 1998.

o “
There will not be an armed uprising of Japanese [in this country]…Japan will commit some sabotage largely depending on imported Japanese as they are afraid of and do not trust the Nisei. There will be no wholehearted response from Japanese in the United States… For the most part the local Japanese are loyal to the United States or, at worst, hope that by remaining quiet they believe that they would be at least any more disloyal than any other racial group in the United States with whom we went to war.”
3

December 7, 1942: Attack on Pearl Harbor

December 22, 1942: Time launches article explaining to its readers how to differentiate between their Chinese Neighbor and Japanese Enemy.
An excerpt from the article: o “HOW TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS FROM THE JAPS: Virtually all
Japanese are short. Japanese are likely to be stockier and broader-hipped than short Chinese. Japanese are seldom fat; they often dry up and grown lean as they age. Although both have the typical epicanthic fold of the upper eyelid, Japanese eyes are usually set closer together. The Chinese expression is likely to be more placid, kindly, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant. Japanese are hesitant, nervous in conversation, laugh loudly at the wrong time. Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait, sometimes shuffle.”
4 o The article appeared only fifteen days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. o Many Chinese shop owners put up signs to distinguish their shops from
Japanese ones.

February 19, 1942: President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorized the secretary of war or other military commanders designated by the secretary to establish “military areas” along the west coast that exclude “any or all persons” they felt they needed to exclude. This order gave the consent for the incarceration for the Japanese Americans.

March 11, 1942 : General de Witt established the Wartime Civil Control
Administration, more commonly referred to as the WCCA.

Mach 18, 1942 : Executive Order 9102- War Relocation Authority (WRA) as government division supervising evacuated population- Eisenhower is appointed later as the director of WRA.

March 22, 1942 : first large group of evacuees from Los Angeles, California, were sent to Manzanar, California.

March 24, 1942 : Lt. General DeWitt, the West Coast Commander for the U.S.
Army issued Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1. o Ordered the evacuation of all Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island. It was the first evacuation of Japanese Americans from Washington State and the nation’s first enforced evacuation. o They were given six days to pack.
3 Ibid., 386.
4 Ibid.,370

. o March 30, 1942 at 11 a.m. they boarded a ferry that would take them to
Seattle to board trains, which took them to Manzanar. The trip would be over 1,000 miles long. o 191 were American Citizens o 274 were Japanese residents.

April 28, 1942 : Seattle Japanese Americans sent to Camp Harmony.

May 5, 1942 : University of Washington student, Gordon Hirabayshi refused to follow curfew and evacuation orders. He was arrested after he turned himself in.

August 10, 1942 : Minidoka Internment Camp is open , only nine months after
Pearl Harbor. It is located near Jerome, Idaho. The Seattle Japanese have been incarcerated for four months up to this point.

August 12, 1942 : Heart Mountain Internment Camp opened. It was located in
Wyoming. o Jerome, Arkansas was the last to open as an internment camp.

February 1943: President Roosevelt allows Nisei to be in the army.

August 15, 1945: World War II ends when Japan surrenders to the Allies, after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1952 : McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act allowed Issei naturalization.

1976 : 34 th
Anniversary of Executive Order 9066. President Gerald Ford declared the evacuation a “National Mistake.”
5

1988 : HR 422-signed into law by President Reagan providing reparations for surviving internees.

1990 : $20,000 in redress payments were sent to all Japanese Americans who were interned.

November 9, 2000 : The dedication of the National Japanese American Memorial in Washington D.C.
5 Ng, Wendy. Japanese American Internment During World War II. Westport: Greenwood Press. 2002.