Internment

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

Anti-Japanese Sentiment in U.S.

The Internment Begins• Executive Order 9066 –

On February 19, 1942, 2 ½ months after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt orders that all people of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. must be moved to military-controlled camps.

• Law also applied to some Italian and German immigrants, but not nearly as many.

Japanese on the Move• Japanese-Americans were rounded up from Washington state down through California, and even into Arizona. They were then relocated to the camps.

Camps

The Kids•Children were schooled and were, ironically, forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance each morning.

Statistics• Over 120,000 Japanese-

Americans were moved to the camps.• 2/3 of these people were

American citizens who had no connection to the Empire of Japan whatsoever.

Celebrities who were interned

Aftermath• President Ford repealed the Executive Order in the 1970s, and President Carter would create a committee to look into the history of the law.

• In 1988, President Reagan signed a law that would pay survivors of the internment $20,000 each as an apology of sorts.

Assignment• “The worst thing about the camp was we felt we didn’t have a country. We didn’t know what we were, American or Japanese. We could have been very helpful in the defense work. Sitting in the camps like that didn’t do us any good.”

• These words came from about 1942. Who do you think might have said them?

• Can a government ever justify locking up some of its citizens even if they have committed no crime? Explain your answer as fully as possible in one clear paragraph.