Editing Internment of Japanese Americans

{{Short description|Mass incarceration in the U.S. during WWII}}
{{Infobox event
| Event_Name = Internment of Japanese Americans
| Image_Name = {{multiple image|border=infobox|perrow=2/2/2|total_width=300
| image1=Woodland, California. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry are boarding a special train for Merced Assembl . . . - NARA - 537818 (cropped2).jpg
| alt1=
| image2=Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. A general all over view of a section of the emergency . . . - NARA - 539071 (cropped).jpg
| alt2=
| image3=Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Making camouflage nets for the War Department. T . . . - NARA - 538118 (cropped).jpg
| alt3=
| image4=Gila River Relocation Center, Rivers, Arizona. Evacuee farmers harvesting spinach at this relocatio . . . - NARA - 538585 (cropped).jpg
| alt4=
| image5=Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Residents of Japanese ancestry, at the H . . . - NARA - 539235 (cropped).jpg
| alt5=
| image6=Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Part of a class under the Adult Education Program . . . - NARA - 538091 (cropped).jpg
| alt6=}}
| Image_Alt = 
| Image_Caption = '''Clockwise from top left:''' {{flatlist|
* Boarding a train in [[Woodland, California]]
* [[Granada Relocation Center]] in Colorado
* Harvesting spinach at [[Gila River Relocation Center|Gila River]]
* Adults in class at [[Manzanar]]
* Ice skating at [[Heart Mountain Relocation Center|Heart Mountain]]
* Making camouflage nets for the [[United States Department of War|War Department]]
}}
| partof = the [[history of Asian Americans]] and [[United States home front during World War II]]
| Location = [[Western United States]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/nhl/learn/themes/JapaneseAmericansWWII.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150113131838/https://www.nps.gov/nhl/learn/themes/JapaneseAmericansWWII.pdf|archive-date=January 13, 2015|title=Japanese Americans in World War II: National historic landmarks theme study|author=National Park Service|year=2012|location=Washington, DC|editor=Wyatt, Barbara|publisher=U.S. Department of the Interior|access-date=February 22, 2017}}</ref>
| blank_label = Prisoners
| blank_data = 120,000 [[Japanese Americans]], mostly living on the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]]
| Date = February 19, 1942 – March 20, 1946
| perpetrator = [[United States federal government]]
* California Attorney General [[Earl Warren]]
* Lieutenant General [[John L. DeWitt]]
| motive = *[[Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States|Anti-Japanese racism]]<ref name=CongressReport/><ref name="executiveOrder">{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066 |title=Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration (1942) |date=September 22, 2021 }}</ref>
*Hysteria<ref name=CongressReport/> following the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] and the [[Niihau incident]]
| cause = [[Executive Order 9066]] signed by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
| outcome = *Partial financial compensation for lost property under the [[Japanese-American Claims Act]] of 1948 signed by [[Harry Truman]]
*Formal apology and financial reparations given to surviving victims under the [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]] signed by [[Ronald Reagan]]
| deaths = At least 1,862;<ref name=Fiset/> at least 7 homicides by sentries<ref name=homicideincamp/>
| inquiries = [[Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians]] (1983)
| blank2_label = Supreme Court cases
| blank2_data = * ''[[Hirabayashi v. United States]]'' (1943)
* ''[[Yasui v. United States]]'' (1943)
* ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]'' (1944)
* ''[[Ex parte Endo]]'' (1944)
}}
{{Discrimination sidebar|state=collapsed}}[[United States home front during World War II|During World War II]], the United States forcibly relocated and [[Internment|incarcerated]] about 120,000 people of [[Japanese Americans|Japanese descent]] in ten [[#Terminology debate|concentration camps]]<!-- Please discuss and obtain consensus on the talk page before changing terminology; also see "Terminology debate" section below. --> operated by the [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA), mostly in the [[Western United States|western interior of the country]]. About two-thirds were [[Citizenship in the United States|U.S. citizens]]. These actions were initiated by [[Executive Order 9066]], issued by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] on February 19, 1942, following the outbreak of war with the [[Empire of Japan]] in December 1941. About 127,000 Japanese Americans then lived in the [[continental United States|continental U.S.]], of which about 112,000 lived on the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]]. About 80,000 were ''[[Nisei]]'' ('second generation'; American-born Japanese with U.S. citizenship) and ''[[Sansei]]'' ('third generation', the children of ''Nisei''). The rest were ''[[Issei]]'' ('first generation') immigrants born in Japan, who were ineligible for citizenship. In [[Territory of Hawaii|Hawaii]], where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the [[Demographics of Hawaii|territory's population]], only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated.

Internment was intended to mitigate a security risk which Japanese Americans were believed to pose. The scale of the incarceration in proportion to the size of the Japanese American population far surpassed similar measures undertaken [[Internment of German Americans|against German]] and [[Internment of Italian Americans|Italian Americans]] who numbered in the millions and of whom some thousands were interned, most of these non-citizens. Following the executive order, the entire West Coast was designated a military exclusion area, and all Japanese Americans living there were taken to assembly centers before being sent to [[concentration camp]]s in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas. Similar actions were taken [[Internment of Japanese Canadians|against individuals of Japanese descent in Canada]]. Internees were prohibited from taking more than they could carry into the camps, and many were forced to sell some or all of their property, including their homes and businesses. At the camps, which were surrounded by [[barbed wire]] fences and patrolled by armed guards, internees often lived in overcrowded barracks with minimal furnishing.

In its 1944 decision ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]'', the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] upheld the constitutionality of the removals under the [[Due Process Clause]] of the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution]]. The Court limited its decision to the validity of the exclusion orders, avoiding the issue of the incarceration of U.S. citizens without due process, but ruled on the same day in ''[[Ex parte Endo]]'' that a loyal citizen could not be detained, which began their release. On December 17, 1944, the exclusion orders were rescinded, and nine of the ten camps were shut down by the end of 1945. Japanese Americans were initially barred from U.S. military service, but by 1943, they were allowed to join, with 20,000 serving during the war. Over 4,000 students were allowed to leave the camps to attend college. Hospitals in the camps recorded 5,981 births and 1,862 deaths during incarceration.

In the 1970s, under mounting pressure from the [[Japanese American Citizens League]] (JACL) and [[Japanese American redress and court cases|redress organizations]], President [[Jimmy Carter]] appointed the [[Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians]] (CWRIC) to investigate whether the internment had been justified. In 1983, the commission's report, ''Personal Justice Denied,'' found little evidence of Japanese disloyalty and concluded that internment had been the product of [[Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States|racism]]. It recommended that the government pay [[reparation (legal)|reparations]] to the detainees. In 1988, President [[Ronald Reagan]] signed the [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]], which officially apologized and authorized a payment of $20,000 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=20,000|start_year=1988|r=-3|fmt=eq}}) to each former detainee who was still alive when the act was passed. The legislation admitted that the government's actions were based on "race prejudice, war [[hysteria]], and a failure of political leadership." By 1992, the U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6&nbsp;billion (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|1.6|1988|r=2}}&nbsp;billion in {{Inflation/year|US}}) in reparations to 82,219 Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated.

{{TOC limit|2}}

==Background==
{{Further|History of Japanese Americans}}

=== Prior use of internment camps in the United States ===
The United States Government had previously employed civilian [[internment]] policies in a variety of circumstances. During the 1830s, civilians of the indigenous [[Cherokee]] nation were evicted from their homes and detained in "emigration depots" in [[Alabama]] and [[Tennessee]] prior to the deportation to [[Oklahoma]] following the passage of the [[Indian Removal Act]] in 1830. Similar internment policies were carried out by U.S. territorial authorities against the [[Dakota people|Dakota]] and [[Navajo]] peoples during the [[American Indian Wars]] in the 1860s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Opinion {{!}} A Brief History of US Concentration Camps {{!}} Common Dreams |url=https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/21/brief-history-us-concentration-camps |access-date=2025-02-20 |website=www.commondreams.org |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Cherokee Indian Removal |url=https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/cherokee-indian-removal/ |access-date=2025-02-20 |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |language=en-US}}</ref> In 1901, during the [[Philippine–American War]], General [[J. Franklin Bell]] ordered the detainment of Filipino civilians in the provinces of [[Batangas]] and [[Laguna (province)|Laguna]] into U.S. Army-run concentration camps in order to prevent them from collaborating with Filipino General [[Miguel Malvar]]'s guerrillas; over 11,000 people died in the camps from malnutrition and disease.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pitzer |first=Andrea |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q0PTDQAAQBAJ |title=One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps |date=2017-09-19 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-30358-3 |language=en}}</ref> 

After the United States entered [[World War I]] in 1917, roughly 6,300 German-born residents of the United States were arrested, with 2,048 of those residents being incarcerated at two U.S. Army bases, where they remained interned until 1920.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krammer |first=Arnold |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=20dnAAAAMAAJ |title=Undue Process: The Untold Story of America's German Alien Internees |date=1997 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-8518-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=DuBois |first1=MacKenzie N. |last2=University |first2=Brigham Young |title=Fort Douglas WWI German Internment Camp - WWI German Internment Camp |url=https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/432 |access-date=2025-02-20 |website=Intermountain Histories |language=en-US}}</ref> However, these policies only targeted a small fraction of German-born Americans and did not apply to [[German Americans|German-American]] U.S. citizens.

===Japanese Americans before World War II===
{{Further | Japanese American life before World War II}}

Due in large part to socio-political changes which stemmed from the [[Meiji Restoration]]—and a [[recession]] which was caused by the abrupt [[opening of Japan]]'s economy to the [[world economy]]—people emigrated from the [[Empire of Japan]] after 1868 in search of employment.<ref name="Anderson-Immigration">Anderson, Emily. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration/ Immigration]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2014.</ref> From 1869 to 1924, approximately 200,000 Japanese immigrated to the islands of Hawaii, mostly laborers expecting to work on the [[Hawaiian sugar plantations|islands' sugar plantations]]. Some 180,000 went to the U.S. mainland, with the majority of them settling on the West Coast and establishing farms or small businesses.<ref name="Densho-about">{{cite web |title=About the Incarceration |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/history |access-date=July 13, 2019 |publisher=Densho}}</ref><ref>Okihiro, Gary Y. ''The Columbia Guide to Asian American History''. 2005, p. 104</ref> Most arrived before 1908, when the [[Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907|Gentlemen's Agreement]] between Japan and the United States banned the immigration of unskilled laborers. A loophole allowed the wives of men who were already living in the US to join their husbands. The practice of women marrying by proxy and immigrating to the U.S. resulted in a large increase in the number of "[[picture bride]]s."<ref name="Anderson-Immigration" /><ref name="picture brides">Nakamura, Kelli Y. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Picture_brides/]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2014.</ref>

As the Japanese American population continued to grow, [[European Americans]] who lived on the West Coast resisted the arrival of this ethnic group, fearing competition, and making the exaggerated claim that hordes of Asians would take over white-owned farmland and businesses. Groups such as the [[Exclusion League|Asiatic Exclusion League]], the [[California Joint Immigration Committee]], and the [[Native Sons of the Golden West]] organized in response to the rise of this "[[Yellow Peril]]." They successfully lobbied to restrict the property and citizenship rights of Japanese immigrants, just as similar groups had previously organized against Chinese immigrants.<ref name="Anti-Japanese exclusion movement">Anderson, Emily. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Anti-Japanese%20exclusion%20movement/ Anti-Japanese exclusion movement]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2014.</ref> Beginning in the late 19th century, several laws and treaties which attempted to slow immigration from Japan were introduced. The [[Immigration Act of 1924]], which followed the example of the 1882 [[Chinese Exclusion Act]], effectively banned all immigration from Japan and other "undesirable" Asian countries.

The 1924 ban on immigration produced unusually well-defined generational groups within the Japanese American community. The ''[[Issei]]'' were exclusively those Japanese who had immigrated before 1924; some of them desired to return to their homeland.<ref>Nash, Gary B., Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, Allan M. Winkler, Charlene Mires, and Carla Gardina Pestana. ''The American People, Concise Edition Creating a Nation and a Society'', Combined Volume (6th Edition). New York: Longman, 2007</ref> Because no more immigrants were permitted, all Japanese Americans who were born after 1924 were, by definition, born in the U.S. and by law, they were automatically considered U.S. citizens. The members of this ''[[Nisei]]'' generation constituted a cohort which was distinct from the cohort which their parents belonged to. In addition to the usual generational differences, Issei men were typically ten to fifteen years older than their wives, making them significantly older than the younger children in their often large families.<ref name="picture brides" /> U.S. law prohibited Japanese immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens, making them dependent on their children whenever they rented or purchased property. Communication between English-speaking children and parents who mostly or completely spoke in Japanese was often difficult. A significant number of older Nisei, many of whom were born prior to the immigration ban, had married and already started families of their own by the time the US entered World War II.<ref>{{cite book|title=Japanese American Internment during World War II: A History and Reference Guide|url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00ngwe|url-access=registration|last=Ng|first=Wendy|publisher=Greenwood|year=2002|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00ngwe/page/n37 8]–9|isbn=978-0-313-31375-2}}</ref>

Despite racist legislation which prevented Issei from becoming naturalized citizens (or [[Alien land laws|owning property]], voting, or running for political office), these Japanese immigrants established communities in their new hometowns. Japanese Americans contributed to the agriculture of California and other Western states, by introducing irrigation methods which enabled them to cultivate fruits, vegetables, and flowers on previously inhospitable land.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Iwata |first1=Masakazu |date=1962 |title=The Japanese immigrants in California agriculture |journal=Agricultural History |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=25–37 |jstor=3740395 }}</ref>

In both rural and urban areas, ''kenjinkai,'' community groups for immigrants from the same [[Japanese prefecture]], and ''[[Buddhist Women's Association|fujinkai]],'' Buddhist women's associations, organized community events and did charitable work, provided loans and financial assistance and built [[Japanese language education in the United States|Japanese language schools]] for their children. Excluded from setting up shop in white neighborhoods, [[Japanese diaspora|nikkei]]-owned small businesses thrived in the ''[[Nihonmachi]],'' or Japantowns of urban centers, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and [[Seattle]].<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Sumida |first1=Nami |last2=Suzuki |first2=Lea |last3=Hartlaub |first3=Peter |last4=Blanchard |first4=John |last5=Zhu |first5=Stephanie |date=April 4, 2024 |title=Mass incarceration devastated S.F. Japantown. For the first time, we know how much |url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2024/sf-japantown-incarceration/ |website=San Francisco Chronicle}}</ref>

[[File:Geographical Distribution Japanese Population USA 1940 1.jpg|alt=A per-state population map of the Japanese American population, with California leading by a far margin with 93,717.|thumb|A per-state population map of the Japanese American population, with California leading with 93,717, from ''Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942''|left]]

In the 1930s, the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] (ONI), concerned as a result of Imperial Japan's rising military power in Asia, began to conduct surveillance in Japanese American communities in Hawaii. Starting in 1936, at the behest of President Roosevelt, the ONI began to compile a "special list of those Japanese Americans who would be the first to be placed in a [[Internment|concentration camp]] in the event of trouble" between Japan and the United States. In 1939, again by order of the President, the ONI, [[Military Intelligence Division (United States)|Military Intelligence Division]], and [[FBI]] began working together to compile a larger [[Custodial Detention Index]].<ref name=Kashima-ABClist>Kashima, Tetsuden. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial%20detention%20/%20A-B-C%20list/ Custodial detention / A-B-C list]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2014.</ref> Early in 1941, Roosevelt commissioned [[Munson Report|Curtis Munson]] to conduct an investigation on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and in Hawaii. After working with FBI and ONI officials and interviewing Japanese Americans and those familiar with them, Munson determined that the "Japanese problem" was nonexistent. His final report to the President, submitted November 7, 1941, "certified a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/yearsofinfamyunt00wegl |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura|author-link=Michi Weglyn |year=1976 |page=[https://archive.org/details/yearsofinfamyunt00wegl/page/34 p. 34]|no-pp=yes|isbn=978-0-688-07996-3}}</ref> A subsequent report by [[Kenneth Ringle]] (ONI), delivered to the President in January 1942, also found little evidence to support claims of Japanese American disloyalty and argued against mass incarceration.<ref name=Niiya-Ringle>Niiya, Brian. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Kenneth%20Ringle/ Kenneth Ringle]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2014.</ref>

===Roosevelt's racial attitudes toward Japanese Americans===

Roosevelt's decision to intern Japanese Americans was consistent with Roosevelt's long-time racial views.  During the 1920s, for example, he had written articles in the [[Macon Telegraph]] opposing white-Japanese intermarriage for fostering "the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood" and praising California's ban on land ownership by the first-generation Japanese.  In 1936, while president, he privately wrote that, regarding contacts between Japanese sailors and the local Japanese American population in the event of war, "every [[Japanese nationality law|Japanese citizen]] or non-citizen on the Island of Oahu who meets these Japanese ships or has any connection with their officers or men should be secretly but definitely identified and his or her name placed on a special list of those who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp."  <ref name="Beito, p. 165-173">Beito, p. 165-173.</ref>

===After Pearl Harbor===

In the weeks immediately following the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] the president disregarded the advice of advisors, notably [[John Franklin Carter]], who urged him to speak out in defense of the rights of Japanese Americans.<ref name="Beito, p. 165-173"/>

[[File:Newspaper headlines of Japanese Relocation - NARA - 195535.jpg|thumb|''The San Francisco Examiner'', April 1942]]
[[File:JapaneseAmericanGrocer1942.jpg|thumb|Tatsuro Masuda, a Japanese American, unfurled this banner in Oakland, California the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. [[Dorothea Lange]] took this photograph in March 1942, just before his internment.]]
[[File:Russell Lee, Tagged for evacuation, Salinas, California, May 1942.jpg|thumb|upright|A child is "Tagged for evacuation", [[Salinas, California]], May 1942. Photo by [[Russell Lee (photographer)|Russell Lee]].]]
[[File:WWII - Shop just before Japanese were evacuated from Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California, by Clem Albers, April 1942.jpg|thumb|A Japanese American shop, Asahi Dye Works, closing. The notice on the front is a reference to [[Manzanar|Owens Valley]] being the first and one of the largest Japanese American detention centers.]]

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, led military and political leaders to suspect that [[Imperial Japan]] was preparing a [[Invasion of the United States#Imperial Japan|full-scale invasion of the United States West Coast]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historyonthenet.com/what-happened-after-the-attack-of-pearl-harbor |website=www.historyonthenet.com |access-date=17 September 2020 |title=What Happened After the Attack of Pearl Harbor|date=December 6, 2016 }}</ref> Due to Japan's [[Japanese expansion (1941–42)|rapid military conquest]] of a large portion of Asia and the Pacific including a small portion of the U.S. West Coast (i.e., [[Aleutian Islands Campaign]]) between 1937 and 1942, some Americans{{Who|date=May 2020}} feared that its military forces were unstoppable.

American public opinion initially stood by the large population of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, with the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' characterizing them as "good Americans, born and educated as such." Many Americans believed that their loyalty to the United States was unquestionable.<ref>{{cite book | author=Irons, Peter. | title=Justice At War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases | publisher=University of Washington Press | year=1993 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/justiceatwarthes00iron/page/7 7]–9 | url=https://archive.org/details/justiceatwarthes00iron | url-access=registration |isbn= 978-0-520-08312-7}}</ref> Though some in the administration (including Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]] and FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]]) dismissed all rumors of Japanese American espionage on behalf of the Japanese war effort, pressure mounted upon the administration as the tide of public opinion turned against Japanese Americans.

A survey of the Office of Facts and Figures on February 4 (two weeks prior to the president's order) reported that a majority of Americans expressed satisfaction with existing governmental controls on Japanese Americans. Moreover, in his autobiography in 1962, Biddle, who opposed incarceration, downplayed the influence of public opinion in prompting the president's decision. He even considered it doubtful "whether, political and special group press aside, public opinion even on the West Coast supported evacuation."<ref>{{cite book |last=Beito |first=David T. |title=The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance |publisher=Independent Institute |year=2023 |isbn=978-1598133561 |edition=First |location=Oakland |pages=172}}</ref> Support for harsher measures toward Japanese Americans increased over time, however, in part since Roosevelt did little to use his office to calm attitudes. According to a March 1942 poll conducted by the [[American Institute of Public Opinion]], after incarceration was becoming inevitable, 93% of Americans supported the relocation of Japanese non-citizens from the [[Pacific Coast]] while only 1% opposed it. According to the same poll, 59% supported the relocation of Japanese people who were born in the country and were United States citizens, while 25% opposed it.

The incarceration and imprisonment measures taken against Japanese Americans after the attack falls into a broader trend of anti-Japanese attitudes on the West Coast of the United States.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |title=Judgement Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II |publisher=University of Washington Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780295802336 |publication-date=2003-12-01 |pages=14}}</ref> To this end, preparations had already been made in the collection of names of Japanese American individuals and organizations, along with other foreign nationals such as Germans and Italians, that were to be removed from society in the event of a conflict.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |title=Judgement Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II |publisher=Washington University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780295802336 |publication-date=2003-12-01 |pages=43–45}}</ref> The December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the [[World War II|Second World War]], enabled the implementation of the dedicated government policy of incarceration, with the action and methodology having been extensively prepared before war broke out despite multiple reports that had been consulted by Roosevelt expressing the notion that Japanese Americans posed little threat.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |title=Judgement Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II |publisher=Washington University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780295802336 |publication-date=2003-12-01 |pages=41–42}}</ref>

Additionally, the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II led to severe economic consequences. Numerous Japanese Americans had to leave their homes, businesses, and possessions since they were relocated to the internment camps. This also led to the collapse of many family-owned businesses, real estate, and their savings since they had been escorted to the camps. "Camp residents lost some $400 million in property during their incarceration. Congress provided $38 million in reparations in 1948 and, forty years later, paid an additional $20,000 to each surviving individual who had been detained in the camps".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-15 |title=Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II |url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=National Archives |language=en}}</ref> Additionally, Japanese American farmers suffered greatly due to their forced relocation. In 1942, the managing secretary of the Western Growers Protective Association reported that the removal of Japanese Americans led to significant profits for growers and shippers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Varner |first=Natasha |date=2017-04-04 |title=Sold, Damaged, Stolen, Gone: Japanese American Property Loss During WWII |url=https://densho.org/catalyst/sold-damaged-stolen-gone-japanese-american-property-loss-wwii/ |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment |language=en-US}}</ref> These losses were tragic, which ended up affecting a multitude of Japanese Americans and resulted in many losses of properties, businesses, and more. This also resulted in limited compensation, and far less than what they had originally lost. The economic outcomes of the Japanese imprisonments were disastrous and serve as a reminder of the lasting cost of cultural discrimination.

====Niihau incident====
Although the impact on US authorities is controversial, the [[Niihau incident]] immediately followed the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Ishimatsu Shintani, an Issei, and Yoshio Harada, a Nisei, and his Issei wife Irene Harada on the island of Ni'ihau violently freed a downed and captured Japanese naval airman, attacking their fellow Ni'ihau islanders in the process.<ref>{{cite book
 | url = https://archive.org/details/december71941da00pran/page/375
 | isbn = 0-07-050682-5
 | last = Prange
 | first = Gordon W.
 | author-link = Gordon Prange
 | year = 1962
 | title = December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor
 | publisher = McGraw Hill
 | location = New York
 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/december71941da00pran/page/375 375–77]
 }}</ref>

====Roberts Commission====
Several concerns over the loyalty of ethnic Japanese seemed to stem from [[Racism|racial prejudice]] rather than any evidence of malfeasance. The [[Roberts Commission]] report, which investigated the Pearl Harbor attack, was released on January 25 and accused persons of Japanese ancestry of espionage leading up to the attack.<ref name=Conn1/> Although the report's key finding was that General [[Walter Short]] and Admiral [[Husband E. Kimmel]] had been derelict in their duties during the attack on Pearl Harbor, one passage made vague reference to "Japanese consular agents and other... persons having no open relations with the Japanese foreign service" transmitting information to Japan. It was unlikely that these "spies" were Japanese American, as Japanese intelligence agents were distrustful of their American counterparts and preferred to recruit "white persons and Negroes."<ref>Niiya, Brian. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Magic%20cables/]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2018.</ref> However, despite the fact that the report made no mention of Americans of Japanese ancestry, national and West Coast media nevertheless used the report to vilify Japanese Americans and inflame public opinion against them.<ref name="Densho_RobComm">Niiya, Brian. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Roberts%20Commission%20report/]," ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved August 14, 2018.</ref>

====Questioning loyalty====
Major [[Karl Bendetsen]] and Lieutenant General [[John L. DeWitt]], head of the [[Western Defense Command]], questioned Japanese American loyalty. DeWitt said:

{{blockquote|The fact that nothing has happened so far is more or less . . . ominous, in that I feel that in view of the fact that we have had no sporadic attempts at sabotage that there is a control being exercised and when we have it<!--not a mistake--> it will be on a mass basis.<ref name=Conn1>{{Cite book| last1=Conn| first1=Stetson| last2=Engelman| first2=Rose C.| last3=Fairchild| first3=Byron| title=Guarding the United States and its Outposts| url=http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/index.htm#contents| series=United States Army in World War II| orig-date=1964| year=2000| publisher=Center of Military History, United States Army| location=Washington, D.C.| pages=120–23| access-date=June 13, 2018| archive-date=December 25, 2007| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225041653/http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/index.htm#contents}}</ref>}}

He further stated in a conversation with California's governor, [[Culbert L. Olson]]:

{{blockquote|There's a tremendous volume of public opinion now developing against the Japanese of all classes, that is aliens and non-aliens, to get them off the land, and in Southern California around Los Angeles—in that area too—they want and they are bringing pressure on the government to move all the Japanese out. As a matter of fact, it's not being instigated or developed by people who are not thinking but by the best people of California. Since the publication of the Roberts Report they feel that they are living in the midst of a lot of enemies. They don't trust the Japanese, none of them.<ref name=Conn1/>}}

===="A Jap's a Jap"====
DeWitt, who administered the incarceration program, repeatedly told newspapers that "A [[Jap]]'s a Jap" and testified to Congress:

{{blockquote|I don't want any of them [persons of Japanese ancestry] here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty... It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty... But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.<ref>Fred Mullen, "DeWitt Attitude on Japs Upsets Plans," ''Watsonville Register-Pajaronian'', April&nbsp;16,&nbsp;1943. p.1, reproduced by [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928001103/http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/ww2/9066/articles/rp/43/4-16.shtml Santa Cruz Public Library]. Retrieved September 11, 2006.</ref><ref>Testimony of John L. DeWitt, April 13, 1943, House Naval Affairs Subcommittee to Investigate Congested Areas, Part 3, pp. 739–40 (78th Cong ., 1st Sess.), cited in [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=323&invol=214#fff1 ''Korematsu v. United States (Murphy, J., dissenting)'', footnote 2], reproduced at findlaw.com. Retrieved September 11, 2006.</ref>
}}

DeWitt also sought approval to conduct search and seizure operations which were aimed at preventing alien Japanese from making radio transmissions to Japanese ships.<ref name="Taslitz">Andrew E. Taslitz, "Stories of Fourth Amendment Disrespect: From Elian to the Internment," 70 ''Fordham Law Review''. 2257, 2306–07 (2002).</ref> The Justice Department declined, stating that there was no [[probable cause]] to support DeWitt's assertion, as the FBI concluded that there was no security threat.<ref name="Taslitz"/> On January 2, the Joint Immigration Committee of the California Legislature sent a manifesto to California newspapers which attacked "the ethnic Japanese," who it alleged were "totally unassimilable."<ref name="Taslitz"/> This manifesto further argued that all people of Japanese heritage were loyal subjects of the [[Emperor of Japan]]; the manifesto contended that Japanese language schools were bastions of racism which advanced doctrines of Japanese racial superiority.<ref name="Taslitz"/>

The manifesto was backed by the [[Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West]] and the California Department of the [[American Legion]], which in January demanded that all Japanese with [[dual citizenship]] be placed in concentration camps.<ref name="Taslitz"/> By February, [[Earl Warren]], the [[Attorney General of California]] (and a future Chief Justice of the United States), had begun his efforts to persuade the federal government to remove all people of Japanese ethnicity from the West Coast.<ref name="Taslitz"/>

Those who were as little as {{fraction|1|16}} Japanese were placed in incarceration camps.<ref name="Short History of Amache Japanese Internment Camp">{{cite web|url=http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/wwcod/granada3.htm|title=''Short History of Amache Japanese Internment''|access-date=April 21, 2008|archive-date=October 4, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081004041601/http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/wwcod/granada3.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Catherine Collins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqNyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105 |title=Representing Wars from 1860 to the Present: Fields of Action, Fields of Vision |publisher=Brill |year=2018 |isbn=978-90-04-35324-4 |page=105 |access-date=September 29, 2019}}</ref> Bendetsen, promoted to colonel, said in 1942, "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp."<ref name="SmithsonianAMPU">{{cite web |url=https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/removal_process.html |title=Removal process |work=A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution |date=March 16, 2012 |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] |access-date=June 25, 2019 }}</ref>

====Presidential Proclamations====
Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor and pursuant to the [[Alien and Sedition Acts|Alien Enemies Act]], [[Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527]] were issued designating Japanese, [[German-American internment|German]] and [[Italian-American internment|Italian]] nationals as enemy aliens.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/enemy-aliens-overview.html|title=''Brief Overview of the World War II Enemy Alien Control Program''|access-date=December 6, 2012}}</ref> Information gathered by US officials over the previous decade was used to locate and incarcerate thousands of Japanese American community leaders in the days immediately following Pearl Harbor (see section elsewhere in this article "[[#Other concentration camps|Other concentration camps]]"). In Hawaii, under the auspices of martial law, both "enemy aliens" and citizens of Japanese and "German" descent were arrested and interned (incarcerated if they were a US citizen).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bayonetsinparadi00sche/page/n1 |title=Bayonets in Paradise: A Half-Century Retrospect on Martial Law in Hawaiʻi, 1941–1946 |publisher=University of Hawaii School of Law |author=Harry N. Scheiber |year=1997 }}</ref>

Presidential Proclamation 2537 (codified at [https://www.loc.gov/item/fr007012/ 7 Fed. Reg. 329]) was issued on January 14, 1942, requiring "alien enemies" to obtain a certificate of identification and carry it "at all times".<ref name="HistoryInternment">{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-ushers-in-japanese-american-internment|title=Roosevelt ushers in Japanese-American internment – Jan 14, 1942 |publisher=History.com}}</ref> Enemy aliens were not allowed to enter restricted areas.<ref name="HistoryInternment"/> Violators of these regulations were subject to "arrest, detention and incarceration for the duration of the war."<ref name="HistoryInternment"/>

On February 13, the Pacific Coast Congressional subcommittee on aliens and sabotage recommended to the President immediate evacuation of "all persons of Japanese lineage and all others, aliens and citizens alike" who were thought to be dangerous from "strategic areas," further specifying that these included the entire "strategic area" of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. On February 16 the President tasked [[Secretary of War]] [[Henry L. Stimson]] with replying. A conference on February 17 of Secretary Stimson with assistant secretary [[John J. McCloy]], Provost Marshal General [[Allen W. Gullion]], Deputy chief of [[Army Ground Forces]] [[Mark W. Clark]], and Colonel Bendetsen decided that General DeWitt should be directed to commence evacuations "to the extent he deemed necessary" to protect vital installations.<ref>Conn, pp. 133–136</ref> Throughout the war, interned Japanese Americans protested against their treatment and insisted that they be recognized as loyal Americans. Many sought to demonstrate their patriotism by trying to enlist in the armed forces. Although early in the war Japanese Americans were barred from military service, by 1943 the army had begun actively recruiting Nisei to join new all-Japanese American units.

==Development==
===Executive Order 9066 and related actions===
<!-- This section should address the initial stages, including the curfew imposed after the military areas were defined; the exclusion zone definitions, and the steps toward removal. The voluntary resettlement policy and its response should be discussed here. -->

Executive Order 9066, signed by Roosevelt<ref>{{cite web |title=Manzanar National Historic Site |url=https://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm |work=[[National Park Service]]}}</ref> on February 19, 1942, authorized military commanders to designate "military areas" at their discretion, "from which any or all persons may be excluded." These "exclusion zones," unlike the "alien enemy" roundups, were applicable to anyone that an authorized military commander might choose, whether citizen or non-citizen. Eventually such zones would include parts of both the East and West Coasts, totaling about 1/3 of the country by area. Unlike the subsequent deportation and incarceration programs that would come to be applied to large numbers of Japanese Americans, detentions and restrictions directly under this Individual Exclusion Program were placed primarily on individuals of German or Italian ancestry, including American citizens.<ref name=archives_aliens>{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/enemy-aliens-overview.html |title=WWII Enemy Alien Control Overview |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160913231431/http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/enemy-aliens-overview.html |archive-date=September 13, 2016 |work=archives.gov |access-date=January 8, 2007 }}</ref> The order allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded."<ref>{{Cite web |date=February 19, 1942 |title=Executive Order 9066 dated February 19, 1942, in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt Authorizes the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas |url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5730250 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318003404/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5730250 |archive-date=March 18, 2021 |access-date=December 15, 2015 |website=National Archives Catalog}}</ref> Although the executive order did not mention Japanese Americans, this authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were required to leave [[Territory of Alaska|Alaska]]<ref>{{cite book |author=Brian Garfield |url=https://archive.org/details/thousandmilewarw00garf |title=The Thousand-mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians |date=February 1, 1995 |publisher=[[University of Alaska Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/thousandmilewarw00garf/page/48 p. 48] |no-pp=yes}}</ref> and the military exclusion zones from all of California and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, with the exception of those inmates who were being held in government camps.<ref name="korematsu_roberts">{{cite court|litigants=Korematsu v. United States|court=Supreme Court of the United States|reporter=U.S.|vol=323|opinion=214|pinpoint=Dissenting opinion by Justice [[Owen Roberts]]|year=1944|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214#writing-USSC_CR_0323_0214_ZO|publisher=Cornell University Law School|access-date=April 24, 2018}}</ref> The detainees were not only people of Japanese ancestry, they also included a relatively small number—though still totaling well over ten thousand—of people of German and Italian ancestry as well as [[Deportation of Germans from Latin America during World War II|Germans who were expelled from Latin America]] and deported to the U.S.<ref name="Kashima2003">{{cite book |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |title=Judgment Without trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II |title-link=Judgment Without Trial |date=2003 |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |isbn=0-295-98299-3}}</ref>{{rp|124}}<ref name="Adam182">{{cite book |title=Transatlantic relations series. Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia. Volume II |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2005 |isbn=1-85109-628-0 |editor-last=Adam |editor-first=Thomas |page=1182}}</ref> Approximately 5,000 Japanese Americans relocated outside the exclusion zone before March 1942,<ref name="VoluntaryEvacuation">{{cite web |last=Niiya |first=Brian |title=Voluntary Evacuation |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Voluntary_evacuation |access-date=March 12, 2014 |publisher=Densho}}</ref> while some 5,500 community leaders had been arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and thus were already in custody.<ref name="Densho-about" />

[[File:Luggage - Japanese American internment.jpg|thumb|The baggage of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, at a makeshift reception center located at a racetrack]]
[[File:Arcadia, California. Dressed in uniform marking service in the first World War, this veteran enters . . . - NARA - 537044.jpg|thumb|Dressed in uniform marking his service in World War I, a U.S. Navy veteran, Hikotaro Yamada, from [[Torrance, California|Torrance]] enters [[Santa Anita Assembly Center]] (April 1942)]]
[[File:Bainbridge Island (Wash.) evacuation -- Group of young evacuees wave from special train as it leaves Seattle with Island evacuees, March 30, 1942.jpg|thumb|Children wave from the window of a special train as it leaves [[Seattle]] with [[Bainbridge Island]] internees, March 30, 1942]]

On March 2, 1942, General John DeWitt, commanding general of the Western Defense Command, publicly announced the creation of two military restricted zones.<ref name = "JANM chrono">{{cite web | publisher = Japanese American National Museum | url = http://www.janm.org/projects/clasc/chronology.htm | title = Chronology of WWII Incarceration | access-date = March 12, 2014 | archive-date = September 27, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927032848/http://www.janm.org/projects/clasc/chronology.htm }}</ref> Military Area No. 1 consisted of the southern half of Arizona and the western half of California, Oregon, and Washington, as well as all of California south of Los Angeles. Military Area No. 2 covered the rest of those states. DeWitt's proclamation informed Japanese Americans they would be required to leave Military Area 1, but stated that they could remain in the second restricted zone.<ref name = "DenshoNiiya">{{cite web | first = Brian | last = Niiya | url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Military%20Areas%201%20and%202 | title = Military Areas 1 and 2 | publisher = Densho | access-date = March 12, 2014}}</ref> Removal from Military Area No. 1 initially occurred through "voluntary evacuation."<ref name = VoluntaryEvacuation/> Japanese Americans were free to go anywhere outside of the exclusion zone or inside Area 2, with arrangements and costs of relocation to be borne by the individuals. The policy was short-lived; DeWitt issued another proclamation on March 27 that prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving Area 1.<ref name="JANM chrono"/> A night-time curfew, also initiated on March 27, 1942, placed further restrictions on the movements and daily lives of Japanese Americans.<ref name="Kashima2003"/>{{page needed|date=August 2019}}

Included in the forced removal was Alaska, which, like Hawaii, was an incorporated U.S. territory located in the northwest extremity of the continental United States. Unlike the contiguous West Coast, Alaska was not subject to any exclusion zones due to its small Japanese population. Nevertheless, the Western Defense Command announced in April 1942 that all Japanese people and Americans of Japanese ancestry were to leave the territory for incarceration camps inland. By the end of the month, over 200 Japanese residents regardless of citizenship were exiled from Alaska, most of them ended up at the [[Minidoka National Historic Site|Minidoka War Relocation Center]] in [[Southern Idaho]].<ref name = "AlaskaJStor">{{cite journal | last = Naske | first = Claus M | title = The Relocation of Alaska's Japanese Residents | journal = The Pacific Northwest Quarterly | volume = 74 | issue = 3 | pages = 124–29| date = July 1983 | publisher =[[Pacific Northwest Quarterly]] and the [[University of Washington]] | jstor = 40490551 }}</ref>

Eviction from the West Coast began on March 24, 1942, with Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1, which gave the 227 Japanese American residents of [[Bainbridge Island, Washington]] six days to prepare for their "evacuation" directly to Manzanar.<ref name = "DenshoBlankenship">{{cite web | last = Blankenship | first = Anne | url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Bainbridge_Island%2C_Washington | title = Bainbridge Island, Washington | publisher = Densho | access-date = March 31, 2014}}</ref> Colorado governor [[Ralph Lawrence Carr]] was the only elected official to publicly denounce the incarceration of American citizens (an act that cost his reelection, but gained him the gratitude of the Japanese American community, such that [[Sakura Square#Bust of Governor Carr|a statue of him]] was erected in the [[Denver]] Japantown's [[Sakura Square]]).<ref name = "Colorado">{{cite web|url=http://www.coloradohistory.org/RIPsigns/show_markertext.asp?id=811 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061002001303/http://www.coloradohistory.org/RIPsigns/show_markertext.asp?id=811 |archive-date=October 2, 2006 |title=The Colorado History Organization |access-date=January 24, 2010}}</ref> A total of 108 exclusion orders issued by the Western Defense Command over the next five months completed the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast in August 1942.<ref name = "NiiyaDensho">{{cite web | first = Brian | last = Niiya | url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Civilian%20exclusion%20orders | title = Civilian exclusion orders |  publisher = Densho | access-date = March 31, 2014}}</ref>

In addition to imprisoning those of Japanese descent in the US, the US also interned people of Japanese (and German and Italian) descent deported from Latin America. Thirteen Latin American countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru—cooperated with the US by apprehending, detaining and deporting to the US 2,264 Japanese Latin American citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mak |first1=Stephen |title=Japanese Latin Americans |date=April 18, 2017 |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Latin_Americans/ |access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Victory at the IACHR |url=https://jlacampaignforjustice.org/victory/ |website=Campaign for Justice |date=July 26, 2020 |access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>

==Support and opposition==
===Non-military advocates of exclusion, removal, and detention===
[[File:Seuss cartoon.png|thumb|1942 editorial propaganda cartoon in the New York newspaper ''[[PM (newspaper)|PM]]'' by [[Dr. Seuss]] depicting Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington—states with the largest population of Japanese Americans—as prepared to conduct sabotage against the U.S.]]

The deportation and incarceration of Japanese Americans was popular among many white farmers who resented the Japanese American farmers. "White American farmers admitted that their self-interest required the removal of the Japanese."<ref name="Taslitz" /> These individuals saw incarceration as a convenient means of uprooting their Japanese American competitors. Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of the Salinas Vegetable Grower-Shipper Association, told ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' in 1942:

{{blockquote|
We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We do. It's a question of whether the White man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown men. They came into this valley to work, and they stayed to take over... If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we'd never miss them in two weeks because the White farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we do not want them back when the war ends, either.<ref>{{cite court |url = https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214#writing-USSC_CR_0323_0214_ZO |litigants = Korematsu v. United States |vol=  323 |reporter = U.S. |opinion = 214 |court =  Supreme Court of the United States |year =  1944 |access-date = April 24, 2018 |pinpoint=Dissenting opinion by Justice [[Frank Murphy]], footnote 12 }}</ref>
}}

The Leadership of the [[Japanese American Citizens League]] did not question the constitutionality of the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]]. Instead, arguing it would better serve the community to follow government orders without protest, the organization advised the approximately 120,000 affected to go peacefully.<ref name=yamato>{{Cite news |last=Yamato |first=Sharon |title=Carrying the Torch: Wayne Collins Jr. on His Father's Defense of the Renunciants | newspaper=Discover Nikkei |date=October 21, 2014 |url=http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2014/10/21/carrying-the-torch/}}</ref>

The [[Roberts Commission]] Report, prepared at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's request, has been cited as an example of the fear and prejudice informing the thinking behind the incarceration program.<ref name="Taslitz"/> The Report sought to link Japanese Americans with espionage activity, and to associate them with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.<ref name="Taslitz"/> Columnist [[Henry McLemore]], who wrote for the [[William Randolph Hearst|Hearst newspapers]], reflected the growing public sentiment that was fueled by this report:

{{blockquote|
I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior. I don't mean a nice part of the interior either. Herd 'em up, pack 'em off, and give 'em the inside room in the badlands... Personally, I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them.<ref>Neiwert, David. ''The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right''. 2009, p. 195</ref>
}}

Other California newspapers also embraced this view. According to a ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' editorial,
{{blockquote|
A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched... So, a Japanese American born of Japanese parents, nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere...notwithstanding his nominal brand of accidental citizenship almost inevitably and with the rarest exceptions grows up to be a Japanese, and not an American... Thus, while it might cause injustice to a few to treat them all as potential enemies, I cannot escape the conclusion...that such treatment...should be accorded to each and all of them while we are at war with their race.<ref>Niiya, Brian. ''Japanese American History''. 1993, p. 54</ref>
}}
U.S. Representative [[Leland Ford]] ([[Republican Party (United States)|R]]-[[California|CA]]) of [[Los Angeles]] joined the bandwagon, who demanded that "all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in [inland] concentration camps."<ref name="Taslitz"/>

Incarceration of Japanese Americans, who provided critical agricultural labor on the West Coast, created a labor shortage which was exacerbated by the induction of many white American laborers into the Armed Forces. This vacuum precipitated a mass immigration of Mexican workers into the United States to fill these jobs,<ref>Berberoglu, Berch. ''Labor and Capital in the Age of Globalization''. 2002, p. 90</ref> under the banner of what became known as the [[Bracero Program]]. Many Japanese detainees were temporarily released from their camps – for instance, to harvest Western beet crops – to address this wartime labor shortage.<ref>Hanel, Rachael. ''The Japanese American Internment''. 2008, p. 20</ref>

===Non-military advocates who opposed exclusion, removal, and detention===
Like many white American farmers, the white businessmen of Hawaii had their own motives for determining how to deal with the Japanese Americans, but they opposed their incarceration. Instead, these individuals gained the passage of legislation which enabled them to retain the freedom of the nearly 150,000 Japanese Americans who would have otherwise been sent to concentration camps which were located in Hawaii.<ref>Takaki, Ronald T. "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America". Boston: Little, Brown. 1993. Print, p. 378.</ref> As a result, only 1,200<ref name="Ogawa, Dennis M 1991, page 135">Ogawa, Dennis M. and Fox, Jr., Evarts C. ''Japanese Americans, from Relocation to Redress''. 1991, p. 135.</ref> to 1,800 Japanese Americans in Hawaii were incarcerated.<ref name="Ogawa, Dennis M 1991, page 135" />

The powerful businessmen of Hawaii concluded that the imprisonment of such a large proportion of the islands' population would adversely affect the economic prosperity of the territory.<ref name="Takaki, Ronald T. 1993. page 379">Takaki, Ronald T. "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America". Boston: Little, Brown 1993. Print, p. 379.</ref> The Japanese represented "over 90 percent of the carpenters, nearly all of the transportation workers, and a significant portion of the agricultural laborers" on the islands.<ref name="Takaki, Ronald T. 1993. page 379"/> General [[Delos Carleton Emmons]], the military governor of Hawaii, also argued that Japanese labor was "'absolutely essential' for rebuilding the defenses destroyed at [[Naval Station Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]]."<ref name="Takaki, Ronald T. 1993. page 379"/> Recognizing the Japanese American community's contribution to the affluence of the Hawaiian economy, General Emmons fought against the incarceration of the Japanese Americans and had the support of most of the businessmen of Hawaii.<ref name="Takaki, Ronald T. 1993. page 379"/> By comparison, Idaho governor [[Chase A. Clark]], in a Lions Club speech on May 22, 1942, said "Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. We don't want them ... permanently located in our state."<ref name="fiset">{{Cite journal |title=Thinning, Topping, and Loading: Japanese Americans and Beet Sugar in World War II |author=Louis Fiset |journal=The Pacific Northwest Quarterly |date=Summer 1999 |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=123–139 |access-date=16 August 2020 |url= http://www.jstor.com/stable/40492494}}</ref>

Initially, Oregon's governor [[Charles A. Sprague]] opposed the incarceration, and as a result, he decided not to enforce it in the state and he also discouraged residents from harassing their fellow citizens, the [[Nisei]]. He turned against the Japanese by mid-February 1942, days before the executive order was issued, but he later regretted this decision and he attempted to atone for it for the rest of his life.<ref name="internal">{{Cite journal |title=Charles Sprague's Internal Wars: Civil Liberties Challenges of an Editor and Governor |author=Floyd J. McKay |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |date=Winter 1995–1996 |volume=96 |issue=4 |pages=326–361 |access-date=16 August 2020 |url= http://www.jstor.com/stable/20614674}}</ref>

Even though the incarceration was a generally popular policy in California, it was not universally supported. [[R.C. Hoiles]], publisher of the ''[[Orange County Register]]'', argued during the war that the incarceration was unethical and unconstitutional:

<blockquote>It would seem that convicting people of disloyalty to our country without having specific evidence against them is too foreign to our way of life and too close akin to the kind of government we are fighting.... We must realize, as [[Harry Emerson Fosdick|Henry Emerson Fosdick]] so wisely said, 'Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.'<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hoiles|first1=R.C.|title=In his own words: R.C. Hoiles on the WWII Japanese internment|url=http://www.ocregister.com/articles/japanese-41628-evacuation-people.html|access-date=February 23, 2016|work=The Orange County Register|date=October 14, 1942|ref=rchoiles}}</ref></blockquote>

Members of some Christian religious groups (such as [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]]), particularly those who had formerly sent missionaries to Japan, were among opponents of the incarceration policy.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Church (U.S.A.) |first=Presbyterian |date=2016-06-22 |title=Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) - Historical Society chief describes church's support for Japanese-American internees |url=https://www.pcusa.org/news/2016/6/22/historical-society-chief-describes-churchs-support/ |access-date=2024-05-22 |website=www.pcusa.org |language=en}}</ref> Some Baptist and Methodist churches, among others, also organized relief efforts to the camps, supplying inmates with supplies and information.<ref>Robert Shaffer (1999) Opposition to Internment: Defending Japanese American Rights during World War II, The Historian, 61:3, 597–620, DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1999.tb01039.x</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II {{!}} Anne M. Blankenship |url=https://uncpress.org/book/9781469629209/christianity-social-justice-and-the-japanese-american-incarceration-during-world-war-ii/ |access-date=2024-05-22 |website=University of North Carolina Press |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Statement of military necessity as a justification of incarceration===

====Niihau Incident====
{{Main|Niihau Incident}}
[[File:A Challenge to Democracy (1944).ogv|thumb|''[[A Challenge to Democracy]]'' (1944), a 20-minute film produced by the [[War Relocation Authority]]]]

The Niihau Incident occurred in December 1941, just after the Imperial Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor. The Imperial Japanese Navy had designated the Hawaiian island of [[Niihau]] as an uninhabited island for damaged aircraft to land and await rescue. Three Japanese Americans on Niihau assisted a Japanese pilot, Shigenori Nishikaichi, who crashed there. Despite the incident, the Territorial Governor of Hawaii [[Joseph Poindexter]] rejected calls for the mass incarceration of the Japanese Americans living there.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.historynet.com/the-niihau-incident.htm|title = HistoryNet|date = November 12, 2000|access-date = February 17, 2015|website = The Niihau Incident|publisher = HistoryNet|last = Hallstead|first = William}}</ref>

====Cryptography====
{{Main|Magic (cryptography)}}

In ''Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast During World War II'', [[David Lowman (intelligence official)|David Lowman]], a former [[National Security Agency]] operative, argues that [[Magic (cryptography)|Magic]] (the code-name for American code-breaking efforts) intercepts posed "frightening specter of massive espionage nets", thus justifying incarceration.<ref>Maki, Mitchell Takeshi and Kitano, Harry H. L. and Berthold, Sarah Megan. ''Achieving the Impossible Dream''. 1999, p. 143</ref> Lowman contended that incarceration served to ensure the secrecy of U.S. code-breaking efforts, because effective prosecution of Japanese Americans might necessitate disclosure of secret information. If U.S. code-breaking technology was revealed in the context of trials of individual spies, the Japanese Imperial Navy would change its codes, thus undermining U.S. strategic wartime advantage.

Some scholars have criticized or dismissed Lowman's reasoning that "disloyalty" among some individual Japanese Americans could legitimize "incarcerating 120,000 people, including infants, the elderly, and the mentally ill".<ref>Leslie T. Hatamiya. ''Righting a Wrong''. 1994, p. 106</ref><ref>Hayashi, Brian Masaru. ''Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American Internment''. 2004, p. 6</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Irons, Peter. | title=Justice At War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases | publisher=University of Washington Press | year=1993 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/justiceatwarthes00iron/page/374 374]–5 | isbn=0-520-08312-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/justiceatwarthes00iron | url-access=registration }}</ref> Lowman's reading of the contents of the ''Magic'' cables has also been challenged, as some scholars contend that the cables demonstrate that Japanese Americans were not heeding the overtures of Imperial Japan to spy against the United States.<ref>Brian Niiya. ''Japanese American history''. 1993, p. 222</ref> According to one critic, Lowman's book has long since been "refuted and discredited".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.seattlepi.com/local/185162_vcenter06.html |title=Book defends WWII internment of Japanese Americans, racial profiling |newspaper=Seattle Post Intelligencer |access-date=January 24, 2010 }}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

The controversial conclusions drawn by Lowman were defended by conservative commentator [[Michelle Malkin]] in her book ''[[In Defense of Internment|In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror]]'' (2004).<ref>Malkin, Michelle. ''In Defense of Internment''. 2004, pp. 128, 135, 275.</ref> Malkin's defense of Japanese incarceration was due in part to reaction to what she describes as the "constant alarmism from Bush-bashers who argue that every counter-terror measure in America is tantamount to the internment".<ref>{{cite web|last=Malkin |first=Michelle |url=http://michellemalkin.com/2004/08/03/in-defense-of-internment-2/ |title=In Defense Of Internment |publisher=Michelle Malkin |date=August 3, 2004 |access-date=December 5, 2011}}</ref> She criticized academia's treatment of the subject, and suggested that academics critical of Japanese incarceration had ulterior motives. Her book was widely criticized, particularly with regard to her reading of the Magic cables.<ref>{{cite web|author=Eric Muller |url=http://hnn.us/articles/7094.html |title=So Let Me Get This Straight: Michelle Malkin Claims to Have Rewritten the History of Japanese Internment in Just 16 Months? |date=7 September 2004 |publisher=History Network |access-date=December 5, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://hnn.us/articles/7092.html|title=Why the Media Should Stop Paying Attention to the New Book that Defends Japanese Internment|website=hnn.us|date=9 September 2004 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Khawaja |first=Irfan |url=http://hnn.us/articles/9512.html |title=Japanese Internment: Why Daniel Pipes Is Wrong |date=26 June 2005 |publisher=Hnn.us |access-date=January 24, 2010}}</ref> [[Daniel Pipes]], also drawing on Lowman, has defended Malkin, and said that Japanese American incarceration was "a good idea" which offers "lessons for today".<ref>{{cite web|author=Daniel Piper |url=http://hnn.us/articles/9289.html |title=Japanese Internment: Why It Was a Good Idea – And the Lessons It Offers Today |date=10 January 2005 |publisher=Hnn.us |access-date=December 5, 2011}}</ref>

====Black and Jewish reactions to the Japanese American incarceration====

The American public overwhelmingly approved of the Japanese American incarceration measures and as a result, they were seldom opposed, particularly by members of minority groups who felt that they were also being chastised within America. Morton Grodzins writes that "The sentiment against the Japanese was not far removed from (and it was interchangeable with) [[Racism against Black Americans|sentiments against Negroes]] and [[Antisemitism in the United States|Jews]]."<ref>{{Cite journal|jstor=2126093|last1=Trimble|first1=E. G.|title=Reviewed work: Americans Betrayed., Morton Grodzins|journal=The Journal of Politics|year=1950|volume=12|issue=1|pages=157–161|doi=10.2307/2126093| issn=0022-3816 }}</ref>

Occasionally, the NAACP and the NCJW spoke out but few were more vocal in opposition to incarceration than [[George S. Schuyler]], an associate editor of the [[Pittsburgh Courier]], perhaps the leading black newspaper in the U.S., who was increasingly critical of the domestic and foreign policy of the Roosevelt administration. He dismissed accusations that Japanese Americans presented any genuine national security threat. Schuyler warned African Americans that "if the Government can do this to American citizens of Japanese ancestry, then it can do this to American citizens of ANY ancestry...Their fight is our fight."<ref>Beito, p. 188, 253.</ref>

The shared experience of racial discrimination has led some modern Japanese American leaders to come out in support of [[Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act|HR 40]], a bill which calls for [[Reparations for slavery in the United States|reparations]] to be paid to African-Americans because they are affected by [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] and subsequent discrimination.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ktvu.com/news/japanese-americans-in-solidarity-with-black-community-as-they-remember-internment-camps|title = Japanese-Americans in solidarity with Black community as they remember internment camps|date = February 18, 2021}}</ref> Cheryl Greenberg adds "Not all Americans endorsed such racism. Two similarly oppressed groups, African Americans and [[American Jews|Jewish Americans]], had already organized to fight discrimination and bigotry." However, due to the justification of concentration camps by the US government, "few seemed tactile to endorse the evacuation; most did not even discuss it." Greenberg argues that at the time, the incarceration was not discussed because the government's rhetoric hid the motivations for it behind a guise of military necessity, and a fear of seeming "un-American" led to the silencing of most civil rights groups until years into the policy.<ref>{{Cite journal|jstor = 27500003|last1 = Greenberg|first1 = Cheryl|title = Black and Jewish Responses to Japanese Internment|journal = Journal of American Ethnic History|year = 1995|volume = 14|issue = 2|pages = 3–37}}</ref>

===United States District Court's opinions===
[[File:Posted Japanese American Exclusion Order.jpg|thumb|Official notice of exclusion and removal]]
A letter by DeWitt and Bendetsen expressing racist bias against Japanese Americans was circulated and then hastily redacted in 1943–1944.<ref>{{cite magazine |author=JR Minkel |date=March 30, 2007 |title=Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-the-us-census-b/ |magazine=Scientific American}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |author=Haya El Nasser |date=March 30, 2007 |title=Papers show Census role in WWII camps |work=USA Today |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-census-role_N.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Roger Daniels |date=1982 |title=The Bureau of the Census and the Relocation of Japanese Americans: A Note and Document |journal=[[Amerasia Journal]] |volume=9 |pages=101–105 |doi=10.17953/amer.9.1.h4p7lk32q1k441p3 |number=1}}</ref> DeWitt's final report stated that, because of their race, it was impossible to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans, thus necessitating incarceration.<ref name="Final Report">{{cite web|url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/dewitt0.html|author=Lt. Gen. J.L. DeWitt |title=Final Report; Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942 |publisher=U.S. Army |date=June 5, 1943 |access-date=March 3, 2011}}</ref> The original version was so offensive – even in the atmosphere of the wartime 1940s – that Bendetsen ordered all copies to be destroyed.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Brian|first1=Niiya|title=Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942|date=February 1, 2014|publisher=Densho Encyclopedia|url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Final%20Report,%20Japanese%20Evacuation%20from%20the%20West%20Coast,%201942%20(book)/.}}</ref>

[[File:Korematsu Yasui Hirabayashi.jpg|thumb|[[Fred Korematsu]] (left), [[Minoru Yasui]] (middle) and [[Gordon Hirabayashi]] (right) in 1986]]
In 1980, a copy of the original ''Final Report: Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast – 1942'' was found in the [[United States National Archives|National Archives]], along with notes which show the numerous differences which exist between the original version and the redacted version.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Final_Report,_Japanese_Evacuation_from_the_West_Coast,_1942_(book)/|title=Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942 (book) |publisher= Densho Encyclopedia|website=encyclopedia.densho.org}}</ref> This earlier, racist and inflammatory version, as well as the FBI and [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] (ONI) reports, led to the ''[[coram nobis]]'' retrials which overturned the convictions of [[Fred Korematsu]], [[Gordon Hirabayashi]] and [[Minoru Yasui]] on all charges related to their refusal to submit to exclusion and incarceration.<ref name="Bad landmark">{{cite news | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926338,00.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071219164415/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926338,00.html| archive-date = December 19, 2007| title = Bad landmark; righting a racial wrong| access-date =March 3, 2011| date = November 21, 1983|work= Time Magazine }}</ref> The courts found that the government had intentionally withheld these reports and other critical evidence, at trials all the way up to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]], which proved that there was no military necessity for the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans. In the words of [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] officials writing during the war, the justifications were based on "willful historical inaccuracies and intentional falsehoods".

===The Ringle Report===
In May 2011, U.S. Solicitor General [[Neal Katyal]], after a year of investigation, found [[Charles Fahy]] had intentionally withheld ''The Ringle Report'' drafted by the Office of Naval Intelligence, in order to justify the Roosevelt administration's actions in the cases of ''[[Hirabayashi v. United States]]'' and ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]''. The report would have undermined the administration's position of the military necessity for such action, as it concluded that most Japanese Americans were not a national security threat, and that allegations of communication espionage had been found to be without basis by the FBI and [[Federal Communications Commission]].<ref>[https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-may-27-la-ed-internment-20110527-story.html "The truth about WWII internment"], ''Los Angeles Times,'' May 27, 2011. Accessed June 7, 2011</ref>

==Newspaper editorials==
Editorials from major newspapers at the time were generally supportive of the incarceration of the Japanese by the United States.

A ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' editorial dated February 19, 1942, stated that:

<blockquote>Since Dec. 7 there has existed an obvious menace to the safety of this region in the presence of potential saboteurs and fifth columnists close to oil refineries and storage tanks, airplane factories, Army posts, Navy facilities, ports and communications systems. Under normal sensible procedure not one day would have elapsed after Pearl Harbor before the government had proceeded to round up and send to interior points all Japanese aliens and their immediate descendants for classification and possible incarceration.<ref>{{cite news|title=Action on Japs|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=February 19, 1942|page=A4}}</ref></blockquote>

This dealt with aliens, and the unassimilated. Going even farther, an ''[[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution|Atlanta Constitution]]'' editorial dated February 20, 1942, stated that:

<blockquote>The time to stop taking chances with Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans has come. . . . While Americans have an inate [''sic''] distaste for stringent measures, every one must realize this is a total war, that there are no Americans running loose in Japan or Germany or Italy and there is absolutely no sense in this country running even the slightest risk of a major disaster from enemy groups within the nation.<ref>{{cite news|title=Time To Get Tough|newspaper=The Atlanta Constitution|date=February 20, 1942|page=8}}</ref></blockquote>

A ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'' editorial dated February 22, 1942, stated that:

<blockquote>There is but one way in which to regard the Presidential order empowering the Army to establish "military areas" from which citizens or aliens may be excluded. That is to accept the order as a necessary accompaniment of total defense.<ref>{{cite news|title=Military Necessity|newspaper=Washington Post|date=February 22, 1942|page=B6}}</ref></blockquote>

A ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' editorial dated February 28, 1942, stated that:

<blockquote>As to a considerable number of Japanese, no matter where born, there is unfortunately no doubt whatever. They are for Japan; they will aid Japan in every way possible by espionage, sabotage and other activity; and they need to be restrained for the safety of California and the United States. And since there is no sure test for loyalty to the United States, all must be restrained. Those truly loyal will understand and make no objection.<ref>{{cite news|title=Dies Confirms Need for Removal of Japs|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=February 28, 1942|page=A4}}</ref></blockquote>

A ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' editorial dated December 8, 1942, stated that:

<blockquote>The Japs in these centers in the United States have been afforded the very best of treatment, together with food and living quarters far better than many of them ever knew before, and a minimum amount of restraint. They have been as well fed as the Army and as well as or better housed. . . . The American people can go without milk and butter, but the Japs will be supplied.<ref>{{cite news|title=Kindness to Alien Japs Proves Poor Policy|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=December 8, 1942|page=A4}}</ref></blockquote>

A ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' editorial dated April 22, 1943, stated that:

<blockquote>As a race, the Japanese have made for themselves a record for conscienceless treachery unsurpassed in history. Whatever small theoretical advantages there might be in releasing those under restraint in this country would be enormously outweighed by the risks involved.<ref>{{cite news|title=Stupid and Dangerous|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=April 22, 1943|page=A4}}</ref></blockquote>

==Facilities==
[[File:Map of World War II Japanese American internment camps.png|thumb|Institutions of the Wartime Civil Control Administration and [[War Relocation Authority]] in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]], [[Southern United States|Southern]] and [[Western United States|Western]] U.S.]]
[[File:Photograph of Members of the Mochida Family Awaiting Evacuation - NARA - 537505 - Restoration.jpg|thumb|[[Hayward, California]]. "Members of the Mochida family awaiting evacuation bus. Identification tags are used to aid in keeping the family unit intact during all phases of evacuation. Mochida operated a nursery and five greenhouses on a two-acre site in [[Eden Township, Alameda County, California|Eden Township]]. He raised snapdragons and sweet peas."<ref name="ija-na-mochida">{{cite book|url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/537505|title=Photograph of Members of the Mochida Family Awaiting Evacuation|series=Series: Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority, 1941 – 1989|date=May 8, 1942|publisher=National Archives|access-date=September 4, 2017|archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905001941/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/537505|archive-date=September 5, 2017|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>]]
The [[Works Projects Administration]] (WPA) played a key role in the construction and staffing of the camps in the initial period.  From March to 
the end of November 1942, that agency spent $4.47 million on removal 
and incarceration, which was even more than the Army devoted to that purpose during that period.  The WPA was instrumental in creating such features of the camps as guard towers and barbed wire fencing.<ref name="Beito, p. 182-183">Beito, p. 182-183.</ref>

The government operated several different types of camps holding Japanese Americans. The best known facilities were the military-run Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) ''Assembly Centers'' and the civilian-run [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA) Many employees of the WRA had earlier worked for the WPA during the initial period of removal and construction.<ref name="Beito, p. 182-183"/> ''Relocation Centers,'' which are generally (but unofficially) referred to as "internment camps". Scholars have urged dropping such euphemisms and refer to them as concentration camps and the people as incarcerated.<ref name="Aiko-Words">{{Citation |last=Herzig Yoshinaga |first=AIko |title=Words Can Lie Or Clarify: Terminology Of The World War II Incarceration Of Japanese Americans |year=2009 |url=http://manzanarcommittee.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/wordscanlieorclarify-ahy.pdf |access-date=March 28, 2015 |publisher=Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga}} page 13</ref> Another argument for using the label "concentration camps" is that President Roosevelt himself applied that terminology to them, including at a press conference in November 1944.<ref>Beito, p.198.</ref>

The [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] (DOJ) operated camps officially called ''Internment Camps'', which were used to detain those suspected of crimes or of "enemy sympathies". The government also operated camps for a number of [[German American internment|German Americans]] and [[Italian American internment|Italian Americans]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Commission on Wartime Relocation of Civilians |title=Personal Justice Denied |publisher=Civil Liberties Public Education Fund |year=1997 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=459}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |year=2023 |title=WWII Propaganda: The Influence of Racism – Artifacts Journal – University of Missouri |url=https://artifactsjournal.missouri.edu/2012/03/wwii-propaganda-the-influence-of-racism/ |website=artifactsjournal.missouri.edu}}</ref> who sometimes were assigned to share facilities with the Japanese Americans. The WCCA and WRA facilities were the largest and the most public. The WCCA Assembly Centers were temporary facilities that were first set up in horse racing tracks, fairgrounds, and other large public meeting places to assemble and organize inmates before they were transported to WRA Relocation Centers by truck, bus, or train. The WRA Relocation Centers were semi-permanent camps that housed persons removed from the exclusion zone after March 1942, or until they were able to relocate elsewhere in the United States outside the exclusion zone.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

===DOJ and Army incarceration camps===
Eight U.S. Department of Justice Camps (in Texas, Idaho, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Montana) held Japanese Americans, primarily non-citizens and their families.<ref name="Densho-SOS">{{cite web | publisher = Densho | url = http://www.densho.org/sitesofshame/facilities.xml | title = Sites of Shame (Note: click on Dept. of Justice Camps) | access-date = July 13, 2019 | archive-date = April 5, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070405213033/http://www.densho.org/sitesofshame/facilities.xml }}</ref> The camps were run by the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]], under the umbrella of the DOJ, and guarded by [[United States Border Patrol|Border Patrol]] agents rather than military police. The population of these camps included approximately 3,800 of the 5,500 [[Buddhist]] and Christian ministers, school instructors, newspaper workers, fishermen, and community leaders who had been accused of fifth column activity and arrested by the FBI after Pearl Harbor. (The remaining 1,700 were released to WRA relocation centers.)<ref name=Densho-about/> Immigrants and nationals of German and Italian ancestry were also held in these facilities, often in the same camps as Japanese Americans. Approximately 7,000 German Americans and 3,000 Italian Americans from Hawaiʻi and the U.S. mainland were interned in DOJ camps, along with 500 German seamen already in custody after being rescued from the ''[[SS Columbus (1924)|SS Columbus]]'' in 1939.<ref name="GID-Rosenfeld">{{cite web | first = Alan | last = Rosenfeld | url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/German%20and%20Italian%20detainees | title = German and Italian detainees | publisher = Densho | access-date =  March 5, 2014}}</ref> In addition 2,264 ethnic Japanese,<ref name = "niiya">{{cite book | last = Niiya | first = Brian | title = Japanese American History: An A to Z History from 1868 to the Present | year = 1993 | page =  [https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias/page/191 191] | publisher = VNR AG | url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias | url-access = registration | isbn = 0-8160-2680-7 }}</ref> 4,058 ethnic Germans, and 288 ethnic Italians<ref name=GID-Rosenfeld/> were deported from 19 Latin American countries for a later-abandoned hostage exchange program with [[Axis powers|Axis]] countries or confinement in DOJ camps.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/>{{rp|145–48}}

Several U.S. Army incarceration camps held Japanese, Italian, and German American men considered "potentially dangerous". Camp Lordsburg, in New Mexico, was the only site built specifically to confine Japanese Americans. In May 1943, the Army was given responsibility for the detention of [[prisoners of war]] and all civilian internees were transferred to DOJ camps.<ref name=Densho-SOS/>

===WCCA Civilian Assembly Centers===
<!--Some of the following paragraph was copied from http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce16.htm and is a place holder until better copy can be drafted.-->
[[File:Hayward, California. Friends say good-bye as family of Japanese ancestry await evacuation bus. Bag . . . - NARA - 537514 (cropped).tif|thumb|This [[Dorothea Lange]] photo (May 8, 1942) was captioned: "Hayward, California. Friends say good-bye as a family of Japanese ancestry await evacuation bus."]]
Executive Order 9066 authorized the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast; however, it was signed before there were any facilities completed to house the displaced Japanese Americans. After the voluntary evacuation program failed to result in many families leaving the exclusion zone, the military took charge of the now-mandatory evacuation. On April 9, 1942, the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA)<ref name="wcca">Brian Niiya. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Wartime_Civil_Control_Administration "Wartime Civil Control Administration,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia'' (accessed March 14, 2014).</ref> was established by the [[Western Defense Command]] to coordinate the forced removal of Japanese Americans to inland concentration camps.

The relocation centers faced opposition from inland communities near the proposed sites who disliked the idea of their new "Jap" neighbors. In addition, government forces were struggling to build what would essentially be self-sufficient towns in very isolated, undeveloped, and harsh regions of the country; they were not prepared to house the influx of over 110,000 inmates.<ref>''American Concentration Camps'', Roger Daniels, Vol. 4 April 1942, Garland Publishing, New York, 1989.</ref> Since Japanese Americans living in the restricted zone were considered too dangerous to conduct their daily business, the military decided it had to house them in temporary centers until the relocation centers were completed.<ref>''Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites'', Jeffery F. Burton, Mary M. Farrell, Florence B. Lord, and Richard W. Lord, [http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce16.htm Chapter 16], [http://www.nps.gov/ NPS]. Retrieved August 31, 2006.</ref>

Under the direction of Colonel Karl Bendetsen,<ref name="SmithsonianAMPU" /> existing facilities had been designated for conversion to WCCA use in March 1942, and the Army Corps of Engineers finished construction on these sites on April 21, 1942.<ref name="Linke-AC">Konrad Linke. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Assembly%20centers/ "Assembly centers,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia'' (accessed March 14, 2014).</ref> All but four of the 15 confinement sites (12 in California, and one each in Washington, Oregon, and Arizona) had previously been racetracks or fairgrounds. The stables and livestock areas were cleaned out and hastily converted to living quarters for families of up to six,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.radionetherlandsarchives.org/concentration-camp-u-s-a-a-personal-account-of-the-internment-of-japanese-americans-during-world-war-ii/| title = "Concentration Camp U.S.A. – a personal account of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II", Radio Netherlands Archives, September, 1991| date = September 26, 1991}}</ref> while wood and tarpaper barracks were constructed for additional housing, as well as communal latrines, laundry facilities, and mess halls.<ref name="wcca"/><ref name="Linke-AC"/> A total of 92,193<ref name="Linke-AC"/> Japanese Americans were transferred to these temporary detention centers from March to August 1942. (18,026<ref name="Linke-AC"/> more had been taken directly to two "reception centers" that were developed as the Manzanar and [[Poston War Relocation Center|Poston]] WRA camps.) The WCCA was dissolved on March 15, 1943, when it became the War Relocation Authority and turned its attentions to the more permanent relocation centers.<ref name="wcca"/>

===WRA Relocation Centers===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; font-size:85%; margin-left:10px;"
|+'''WRA Relocation Centers'''<ref>''Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites,'' Jeffery F. Burton, Mary M. Farrell, Florence B. Lord, and Richard W. Lord, [http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce3g.htm Chapter 3], [http://www.nps.gov/ NPS]. Retrieved August 31, 2006.</ref>
!Name
!State
!Opened
!Peak Pop.
|- Ft Missoula relocation center|Missoula|Montana|?|?
|-
|[[Manzanar]]
|California
|March 1942
|10,046
|-
|[[Tule Lake War Relocation Center|Tule Lake]]
|California
|May 1942
|18,789
|-
|[[Poston War Relocation Center|Poston]]
|Arizona
|May 1942
|17,814
|-
|[[Gila River War Relocation Center|Gila River]]
|Arizona
|July 1942
|13,348
|-
|[[Granada War Relocation Center|Granada]]
|Colorado
|August 1942
|7,318
|-
|[[Heart Mountain War Relocation Center|Heart Mountain]]
| Wyoming
|August 1942
|10,767
|-
|[[Minidoka War Relocation Center|Minidoka]]
|Idaho
|August 1942
|9,397
|-
|[[Topaz War Relocation Center|Topaz]]
| Utah
|September 1942
|8,130
|-
|[[Rohwer War Relocation Center|Rohwer]]
|Arkansas
|September 1942
|8,475
|-
|[[Jerome War Relocation Center|Jerome]]
|Arkansas
|October 1942
|8,497
|}

The [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA) was the U.S. civilian agency responsible for the relocation and detention. The WRA was created by President Roosevelt on March 18, 1942, with [[Executive Order 9102]] and it officially ceased to exist on June 30, 1946. [[Milton S. Eisenhower]], then an official of the Department of Agriculture, was chosen to head the WRA. In the 1943 US Government film ''Japanese Relocation'' he said, "This picture tells how the mass migration was accomplished. Neither the Army, not the War Relocation Authority relish the idea of taking men, women and children from their homes, their shops and their farms. So, the military and civilian agencies alike, determined to do the job as a democracy should—with real consideration for the people involved."<ref>{{cite web|title=Japanese Relocation Archived from the original (FILM- original film viewable for free) on 16 July 2002. Retrieved|url=https://archive.org/details/Japanese1943|website=The Internet Archive|publisher=U.S. Office of War Information|access-date=17 November 2017|date=1943|quote=Neither the Army, not the War Relocation Authority relish the idea of taking men, women and children from their homes, their shops and their farms. So, the military and civilian agencies alike, determined to do the job as a democracy should—with real consideration for the people involved.}}</ref> [[Dillon S. Myer]] replaced Eisenhower three months later on June 17, 1942. Myer served as Director of the WRA until the centers were closed.<ref>''Japanese Americans From Relocation to Redress.'' Daniels, Roger, Sandra Taylor, Harry Kitano. Seattle Washington. University of Washington Press, 1991.</ref> Within nine months, the WRA had opened ten facilities in seven states and transferred over 100,000 people from the WCCA facilities.

The WRA camp at [[Tule Lake War Relocation Center|Tule Lake]] was integral to food production in its own camp, as well as other camps. Almost 30 crops were harvested at this site by farmworkers.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Farming Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/19/515822019/farming-behind-barbed-wire-japanese-americans-remember-wwii-incarceration|access-date=2021-09-09|website=NPR.org|date=February 19, 2017|language=en|last1=Morehouse|first1=Lisa}}</ref> Despite this, Tule Lake's camp was eventually used as a detention center for people believed to pose a security risk. Tule Lake also served as a "segregation center" for individuals and families who were deemed "disloyal", and for those who were to be deported to Japan.

===List of camps===
[[File:Eleanor Roosevelt at Gila River, Arizona at Japanese-American Internment Center - NARA - 197094.jpg|thumb|[[Dillon S. Myer]] with [[First Lady of the United States|First Lady]] [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] visiting the Gila River Relocation Center on April 23, 1943]]
[[File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A Music class. Vocal lessons are taught by Miss Leola . . . - NARA - 538951.tif|thumb|Music class at the Rohwer Relocation Center]]
[[File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Allen Hagio, a former California artist, preparing a . . . - NARA - 539380.jpg|thumb|upright|Former California artist Allen Hagio preparing a sign at the Rohwer Relocation Center]]
There were three types of camps. ''Civilian Assembly Centers'' were temporary camps, frequently located at horse tracks, where Japanese Americans were sent after they were removed from their communities. Eventually, most of the Japanese Americans were sent to ''Relocation Centers,'' also known as ''internment camps''. ''Detention camps'' housed Nikkei who the government considered disruptive as well as Nikkei who the government believed were of special interest. When most of the Assembly Centers closed, they became [[California during World War II#Military installations|training camps]] for US troops.

====Civilian Assembly Centers====
* [[Arcadia, California]] ([[Santa Anita Racetrack]], stables) ([[Santa Anita assembly center]])
* [[Fresno, California]] ([[Fresno Fairgrounds]], racetrack, stables) [[Fresno Assembly Center]]
* [[Marysville, California|Marysville]] / [[Arboga, California]] (migrant workers' camp) [[Arboga Assembly Center]]
* [[Mayer, Arizona]] ([[Civilian Conservation Corps]] camp)
* [[Merced, California]] ([[Merced County Fairgrounds]] – [[Merced Assembly Center]])
* [[Owens Valley#History|Owens Valley, California]] ([[Manzanar]] – Owens Valley Reception Center)
* [[Parker Dam, Arizona]] – ([[Poston War Relocation Center]] – Poston assembly center)
* [[Pinedale, California]] ([[Pinedale, California|Pinedale Assembly Center]], warehouses)
* [[Pomona, California]] ([[Fairplex|Los Angeles County Fairgrounds]], racetrack, stables) ([[Pomona assembly center]])
* [[Portland, Oregon]] ([[Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center|Pacific International Livestock Exposition]], including 3,800 housed in the main pavilion building) (Portland Assembly Center)
* [[Puyallup, Washington]] (fairgrounds racetrack stables, Informally known as "[[Camp Harmony]]")
* [[Sacramento, California]] [[Camp Kohler]] (Site of present-day Walerga Park) (migrant workers' camp)
* [[Salinas, California]] ([[California Rodeo Salinas|fairgrounds]], racetrack, stables) Salinas Assembly Center
* [[San Bruno, California]] ([[Tanforan Assembly Center|Tanforan]] racetrack, stables) Tanforan Assembly Center
* [[Stockton, California]] (San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, racetrack, stables)
* [[Tulare, California]] (fairgrounds, racetrack, stables) [[Tulare Assembly Center]]
* [[Turlock, California]] ([[Stanislaus County Fairgrounds]] – [[Turlock Assembly Center]])

====Relocation Centers====
[[File:Sacaton-Japanese Relocation Camp Ruins-5.jpg|thumb|Ruins of the buildings in the Gila River War Relocation Center of Camp Butte]]
[[File:Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California. Harvesting spinach. - NARA - 538316.jpg|thumb|Harvesting spinach, Tule Lake Relocation Center, September 8, 1942]]
[[File:Ansel Adams Manzanar - Nursery, orphan infants - LC-DIG-ppprs-00170.jpg|thumb|Nurse tending four orphaned babies at the [[Manzanar Children's Village]]]]
[[File:Ansel Adams Manzanar - Children's Village - LC-DIG-ppprs-00362.jpg|thumb|Manzanar Children's Village superintendent Harry Matsumoto with several orphan children]]
* [[Gila River War Relocation Center]], Arizona
* [[Granada War Relocation Center]], Colorado (AKA Amache)
* [[Heart Mountain War Relocation Center]], Wyoming
* [[Jerome War Relocation Center]], Arkansas
* [[Manzanar War Relocation Center]], California
* [[Minidoka War Relocation Center]], Idaho
* [[Poston War Relocation Center]], Arizona
* [[Rohwer War Relocation Center]], Arkansas
* [[Topaz War Relocation Center]], Utah
* [[Tule Lake War Relocation Center]], California

====Justice Department detention camps====
These camps often held [[German-American internment|German-American]] and [[Italian-American internment|Italian-American]] detainees in addition to Japanese Americans:<ref name="fulllist">{{cite web | title=Japanese American Internment Camps | url=http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/camp.html | access-date=October 2, 2007}}</ref>
* [[Crystal City Internment Camp|Crystal City, Texas]]<ref name=texasarchive>{{cite web|title=Alien Enemy Detention Facility, Crystal City, Texas|url=http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php?title=Alien_Enemy_Detention_Facility%2C_Crystal_City%2C_Texas&gsearch=alien%20enemy|work=[[The Texas Archive of the Moving Image]]|access-date=August 5, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227101245/http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php?title=Alien_Enemy_Detention_Facility%2C_Crystal_City%2C_Texas&gsearch=alien%20enemy|archive-date=December 27, 2011}}</ref>
* [[Fort Lincoln Internment Camp]]
* [[Fort Missoula Internment Camp|Fort Missoula]], Montana
* [[Fort Stanton, New Mexico]]
* [[Kenedy, Texas]]
* [[Kooskia Internment Camp|Kooskia, Idaho]]
* [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]]
* [[Seagoville, Texas]]
* [[Forest Park, Georgia]]

====Citizen Isolation Centers====
The Citizen Isolation Centers were for those considered to be problem inmates.<ref name="fulllist"/>
* [[Leupp, Arizona]]
* [[Dalton Wells Isolation Center]]
* [[Fort Stanton, New Mexico]] (AKA Old Raton Ranch)

Some consider these camps illegal because they were not authorized by [[Executive Order 9066]].<ref>[https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2024-02-19/the-moab-museum-wants-to-ensure-the-internment-history-of-dalton-wells-isnt-overlooked The Moab Museum wants to ensure the internment history of Dalton Wells isn’t overlooked]</ref>

====Federal Bureau of Prisons====
Detainees convicted of crimes, usually draft resistance, were sent to these sites, mostly federal prisons:<ref name="fulllist"/>
* [[Catalina Federal Honor Camp|Catalina, Arizona]]
* [[Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]]
* [[McNeil Island, Washington]]

====U.S. Army facilities====
These camps often held [[German-American internment|German]] and [[Italian-American internment|Italian]] detainees in addition to Japanese Americans:<ref name="fulllist"/>
* [[Angel Island (California)|Fort McDowell/Angel Island, California]]
* [[Camp Blanding, Florida]]
* [[Camp Forrest]], Tennessee
* [[Camp Livingston]], Louisiana
* [[Camp Lordsburg, New Mexico]]
* [[Camp McCoy, Wisconsin]]
* [[Florence, Arizona]]
* [[Fort Bliss]], New Mexico and Texas
* [[Fort Howard (Maryland)|Fort Howard, Maryland]]
* [[Fort Lewis (Washington)|Fort Lewis]], Washington
* [[Fort Meade, Maryland]]
* [[Fort Richardson (Alaska)|Fort Richardson, Alaska]]
* [[Fort Sam Houston]], Texas
* [[Fort Sill, Oklahoma]]
* [[Griffith Park]], California
* [[Honouliuli Internment Camp]], Hawaiʻi
* [[Sand Island, Hawaii|Sand Island, Hawaiʻi]]
* [[Stringtown, Oklahoma]]

====Immigration and Naturalization Service facilities====
These immigration detention stations held the roughly 5,500 men arrested immediately after Pearl Harbor, in addition to several thousand German and Italian detainees, and served as processing centers from which the men were transferred to DOJ or Army camps:<ref>Burton, J.; Farrell, M.; Lord, F.; Lord, R. ''Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites'', "[http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce17a.htm Temporary Detention Stations] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141106045425/http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce17a.htm |date=November 6, 2014 }}" (National Park Service, 2000). Retrieved August 13, 2014.</ref>
* [[East Boston Immigration Station]]
* [[Ellis Island]]
* [[Cincinnati]], Ohio
* [[San Pedro, Los Angeles]]
* [[Seattle]], Washington
* [[Sharp Park Detention Station|Sharp Park]], California
* [[Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles|Tuna Canyon]], Los Angeles

==Exclusion, removal, and detention==
[[File:Japanese internment detainees.jpg|thumb|left|Japanese Americans in front of posters with internment orders]]

Somewhere between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were subject to this mass exclusion program, of whom about 80,000 ''[[Nisei]]'' (second generation) and ''[[Sansei]]'' (third generation) were U.S. citizens.<ref name="howmany">The official WRA record from 1946 states it was 120,000 people. See {{cite book |author=[[War Relocation Authority]] |url=http://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-282-5/ |title=The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Study |year=1946 |page=8}}. Japanese Americans that were 1/16th or less were excluded from being sent to the camps but above that was considered a threat to the United States. This number does not include people held in other camps such as those which were run by the DoJ or the Army. Other sources may give numbers which are slightly more or less than 120,000.</ref> The rest were ''[[Issei]]'' (first generation) who were subject to internment under the [[Alien Enemies Act]]; many of these "resident aliens" had been inhabitants of the United States for decades, but had been deprived by law of being able to become naturalized citizens. Also part of the West Coast removal were [[Manzanar Children's Village|101 orphaned children]] of Japanese descent taken from orphanages and foster homes within the exclusion zone.<ref>Tawa, Renee. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-03-11-mn-37002-story.html "Childhood Lost: The Orphans of Manzanar"], ''Los Angeles Times,'' March 11, 1997 (accessed May 23, 2014).</ref>

Detainees of Japanese descent were first sent to one of 17 temporary "Civilian Assembly Centers", where most awaited transfer to more permanent relocation centers being constructed by the newly formed [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA). Some of those who reported to the civilian assembly centers were not sent to relocation centers, but were released under the condition that they remain outside the prohibited zone until the military orders were modified or lifted. Almost 120,000<ref name=howmany/> Japanese Americans and resident Japanese aliens were eventually removed from their homes on the West Coast and [[Southern Arizona]] as part of one of the largest forced relocations in [[History of the United States|U.S. history]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Japanese-American Internment {{!}} Harry S. Truman |url=https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/japanese-american-internment |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=www.trumanlibrary.gov}}</ref>

Most of these camps/residences, gardens, and stock areas were placed on Native American reservations, for which the Native Americans were formally compensated. The Native American councils disputed the amounts negotiated in absentia by US government authorities. They later sued to gain relief and additional compensation for some items of dispute.<ref>{{cite journal
 |title=Docket No. 236-A, 236-B, Gila River Indian Community v. The United States of America
 |url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/icc/v25/iccv25p250.pdf
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060903213737/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/icc/v25/iccv25p250.pdf
 |archive-date=September 3, 2006
 |date=April 28, 1971
 |journal=Indian Claims Commission Decisions
 |volume=25
 |page=250}}</ref>

Under the National Student Council Relocation Program (supported primarily by the [[American Friends Service Committee]]), students of college age were permitted to leave the camps to attend institutions willing to accept students of Japanese ancestry. Although the program initially granted leave permits to a very small number of students, this eventually included 2,263 students by December 31, 1943.<ref>Source: ''War Relocation Authority annual reports''</ref>

===Conditions in the camps===
In 1943, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes wrote "the situation in at least some of the Japanese internment camps is bad and is becoming worse rapidly."<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/sign/fdr_51.pdf|title = FDR-51: Letter, Harold L. Ickes to FDR, and Letter, FDR to Harold L. Ickes re: Conditions in Japanese-American Internment Camps, April 13 & 24, 1943 OF 4849: War Relocation Authority, 1943 (Box 1)|date = April 13, 1943|access-date = December 11, 2015|website = Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum}}</ref> The quality of life in the camps was heavily influenced by which government entity was responsible for them. INS Camps were regulated by international treaty. The legal difference between "interned" and relocated had significant effects on those who were imprisoned.

[[File:DensonRelocationCampUmbrellaGirl.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Trudging through the mud during rainy weather at the Jerome Relocation Center]]

According to a 1943 [[War Relocation Authority]] report, inmates were housed in "[[tar paper]]-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind". The spartan facilities met international laws, but left much to be desired. Many camps were built quickly by civilian contractors during the summer of 1942 based on designs for military barracks, making the buildings poorly equipped for cramped family living.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.history.com/news/japanese-internment-camp-wwii-photos| title = ''www.history.com''| date = April 27, 2021}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=February 2021}}{{original research inline|date=February 2021}} Throughout many camps, twenty-five people were forced to live in space built to contain four, leaving no room for privacy.<ref name="Sandler, Martin 2013">Sandler, Martin. Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans during World War II. New York: Walker of Bloomsbury, 2013.{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2021}}

The [[Heart Mountain War Relocation Center]] in northwestern Wyoming was a barbed-wire-surrounded enclave with unpartitioned toilets, cots for beds, and a budget of 45 cents daily per capita for food rations.{{clarify|reason=For feeding people "wholesale", 45 cts/day was not bad then. There was zero inflation due to price controls. I did something like this in the 1950s in a military commissary. They ate well. Lacks context|date=November 2014}}<ref>{{cite web
 |url=https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/news-release-work-war-relocation-authority-anniversary-statement-dillon-s
 |title=Work of the War Relocation Authority, An Anniversary Statement
 |first=Dillon S.
 |last=Myer
 |date=March 1943
 |work=The Harry S. Truman Library & Museum
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-07-07 |title=Mealtime in the Mess Halls |url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-incarceration-meals |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=The National WWII Museum {{!}} New Orleans |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:"Persons of Japanese ancestry arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly Center from San Pedro. Evacuees lived at this center at - NARA - 539960.jpg|thumb|Dust storm at the [[Manzanar]] War Relocation Center]]

Armed guards were posted at the camps, which were all in remote, desolate areas far from population centers. Inmates were typically allowed to stay with their families. There are documented instances of guards shooting inmates who reportedly attempted to walk outside the fences. One such shooting, that of James Wakasa at Topaz, led to a re-evaluation of the security measures in the camps. Some camp administrations eventually allowed relatively free movement outside the marked boundaries of the camps. Nearly a quarter of the inmates left the camps to live and work elsewhere in the United States, outside the exclusion zone. Eventually, some were authorized to return to their hometowns in the exclusion zone under supervision of a sponsoring American family or agency whose loyalty had been assured.<ref>{{Cite book
 |title=Wartime Internment
 |first= Mikiso
 |last=Hane
 |date=September 1990
 |publisher=Organizer of American Historians}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2021}}

The phrase "''[[shikata ga nai]]''" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") was commonly used to summarize the incarcerated families' resignation to their helplessness throughout these conditions. This was noticed by their children, as mentioned in the well-known memoir ''[[Farewell to Manzanar]]'' by [[Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston]] and [[James D. Houston]]. Further, it is noted that parents may have internalized these emotions to withhold their disappointment and anguish from affecting their children. Nevertheless, children still were cognizant of this emotional repression.<ref>{{cite web
 |url=http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/baldwin_nancy_2015.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170404044738/http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/baldwin_nancy_2015.pdf |archive-date=2017-04-04 |url-status=live
 |title=Interview of Nancy Ikeda Baldwin
 |first=Lu Ann
 |last=Sleeper
 |date=2013
 |work=Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library
}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2021}}

====Medical care====
Before the war, 87 physicians and surgeons, 137 nurses, 105 dentists, 132 pharmacists, 35 optometrists, and 92 lab technicians provided healthcare to the Japanese American population, with most practicing in urban centers like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. As the eviction from the West Coast was carried out, the Wartime Civilian Control Administration worked with the [[United States Public Health Service]] (USPHS) and many of these professionals to establish infirmaries within the temporary assembly centers. An Issei doctor was appointed to manage each facility, and additional healthcare staff worked under his supervision, although the USPHS recommendation of one physician for every 1,000 inmates and one nurse to 200 inmates was not met. Overcrowded and unsanitary conditions forced assembly center infirmaries to prioritize inoculations over general care, obstetrics, and surgeries; at Manzanar, for example, hospital staff performed over 40,000 immunizations against typhoid and smallpox.<ref name=Fiset>{{cite web|last=Fiset |first=Louis |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Medical%20care%20in%20camp/ |title=Medical care in camp |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=November 3, 2014}}</ref>{{clarify|reason=compared to how many general care/ob/surgery patients?|date=April 2015}} Food poisoning was common and also demanded significant attention. Those who were detained in Topaz, Minidoka, and Jerome experienced outbreaks of [[dysentery]].<ref name="Sandler, Martin 2013"/>

Facilities in the more permanent "relocation centers" eventually surpassed the makeshift assembly center infirmaries, but in many cases, these hospitals were incomplete when inmates began to arrive and were not fully functional for several months. Additionally, vital medical supplies such as medications and surgical and sterilization equipment were limited. The staff shortages suffered in the assembly centers continued in the WRA camps. The administration's decision to invert the management structure and demote Japanese American medical workers to positions below white employees, while capping their pay rate at $20/month, further exacerbated this problem. (At Heart Mountain, for example, Japanese American doctors received $19/month compared to white nurses' $150/month.)<ref>Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. "[http://www.heartmountain.org/lifeincamp.html Life in Camp] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329155654/http://www.heartmountain.org/lifeincamp.html |date=March 29, 2019 }}" Retrieved November 17, 2014</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://chem.nwc.cc.wy.us/HMDP/history.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304013224/http://chem.nwc.cc.wy.us/HMDP/history.htm |archive-date=2008-03-04 |title=A Brief History of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center and the Japanese American Experience |work=chem.nwc.cc.wy.us |last=Mackey |first=Mike |access-date=October 18, 2019}}</ref> The war had caused a shortage of healthcare professionals across the country, and the camps often lost potential recruits to outside hospitals that offered better pay and living conditions. When the WRA began to allow some Japanese Americans to leave camp, many [[Nikkei people|Nikkei]] medical professionals resettled outside the camp. Those who remained had little authority in the administration of the hospitals. Combined with the inequitable payment of salaries between white and Japanese American employees, conflicts arose at several hospitals, and there were two Japanese American walk-outs at Heart Mountain in 1943.<ref name=Fiset/>

Despite a shortage of healthcare workers, limited access to equipment, and tension between white administrators and Japanese American staff, these hospitals provided much-needed medical care in camp. The extreme climates of the remote incarceration sites were hard on infants and elderly prisoners. The frequent dust storms of the high desert locations led to increased cases of asthma and [[coccidioidomycosis]], while the swampy, mosquito-infested Arkansas camps exposed residents to [[malaria]], all of which were treated in camp. Almost 6,000 live deliveries were performed in these hospitals, and all mothers received pre- and postnatal care. The WRA recorded 1,862 deaths across the ten camps, with cancer, heart disease, tuberculosis, and vascular disease accounting for the majority.<ref name=Fiset/>

===Education===
<gallery class="center">
File:San Francisco, California. Flag of allegiance pledge at Raphael Weill Public School, Geary and Buch . . . - NARA - 536053.jpg|Flag of allegiance pledge at Raphael Weill Public School, Geary and Buchanan Streets, San Francisco, April 20, 1942
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Lily Namimoto, teacher. Student teachers in second gr . . . - NARA - 538958.jpg|Teacher Lily Namimoto and her second grade class
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Fourth Grade School in Barracks 3-4-B. - NARA - 538953.jpg|Fourth grade class in barracks 3-4-B at Rohwer
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. General Office in the High School. - NARA - 538966.jpg|General office in the high school at Rohwer
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. D. L. Cook. Senior Physics Class in Barracks 11-F at . . . - NARA - 538981.jpg|Senior physics class in barracks 11-F at the temporary high school quarters
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A part of the brass section of the High School Band, . . . - NARA - 539378.jpg|A part of the brass section of the high school band
</gallery>
Of the 110,000 Japanese Americans detained by the United States government during World War II, 30,000 were children.<ref>{{cite book|last1=James|first1=Thomas|title=Exile within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans, 1942–1945|date=October 1, 2013|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-18472-5|url=https://archive.org/details/exilewithinschoo00jame}}</ref> Most were school-age children, so educational facilities were set up in the camps.<ref>{{cite web|title=Children of the Camps|url=https://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/documentary/index.html|website=PBS.org|access-date=February 10, 2015}}</ref> The government had not adequately planned for the camps, and no real budget or plan was set aside for the new camp educational facilities.<ref name="ReferenceB">Hui Wu, "Writing and Teaching Behind Barbed Wire: An Exiled Composition Class in a Japanese Internment Camp", ''College Composition and Communication'', Vol. 59, No. 2, December 2007{{subscription required|via JSTOR}}</ref> Camp schoolhouses were crowded and had insufficient materials, books, notebooks, and desks for students. Books were only issued a month after the opening.<ref name="Foster 11 Sep 2015 378–387">{{Cite journal|last=Foster|first=Karen|date=11 Sep 2015|title=Teaching Literacy Behind Barbed Wire in WWII: Elementary Schools in Japanese-American Internment Camps in Arkansas|journal=Childhood Education|volume=91|issue=5|pages=378–87|doi=10.1080/00094056.2015.1090853|s2cid=143014131}}</ref> In the Southwest, the schoolhouses were extremely hot in summertime.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Class sizes were very large. At the height of its attendance, the Rohwer Camp of Arkansas reached 2,339, with only 45 certified teachers.<ref>Wu (2007), "Writing and Teaching", pg. 241</ref> The student to teacher ratio in the camps was 48:1 in elementary schools and 35:1 for secondary schools, compared to the national average of 28:1.<ref>Wu (2007), "Writing and Teaching", pg. 240</ref> There was a general teacher shortage in the US at the time, and the teachers were required to live in the camps themselves.<ref name="Foster 11 Sep 2015 378–387"/> Although the salary in the camps was triple that for regular teaching jobs, authorities were still unable to fill all the teaching positions with certified personnel, and so some non-certified teacher detainees were hired as assistants.<ref name="Foster 11 Sep 2015 378–387"/> Students of all ages graduated and obtained diplomas while in the camp. Graduation celebrations, such as one that took place at Santa Anita in 1942, were well attended.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Yoshida |first=George |url=https://archive.org/details/reminiscinginswi00yosh |title=Reminiscing in Swingtime: Japanese Americans in American Popular Music, 1925-1960 |date=January 1, 1997 |publisher=National Japanese American Historical Society |others= |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-881506-08-9 |pages=130}}</ref> The camp's jazz band, The Starlight Serenaders, played music for over three hundred students spanning from grammar school graduates to those obtaining university degrees.<ref name=":6" /> 

As early as spring 1942, inmates in WCCA assembly camps began the orchestration of informal music education programs, such as in the Santa Anita Detention Center. By June of that year, the music department employed four teachers who instructed over three hundred students and had obtained six pianos for classroom instruction.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barbour |first=Alecia D. |date=2017 |title="For the Good of Our Country": Ruth Watanabe and the "Good That Is in Music" at the Santa Anita Detention Center |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26397584?seq=14 |journal=Notes |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=228 |issn=0027-4380}}</ref> [[Ruth Taiko Watanabe|Ruth Watanabe]], a student in musicology at USC before the evacuation, organized much of Santa Anita’s music education programming, including coordinating a “record-loan” system with friends outside the camp to provide students with a variety of European classical musicians.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barbour |first=Alecia D. |date=2017 |title="For the Good of Our Country": Ruth Watanabe and the "Good That Is in Music" at the Santa Anita Detention Center |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26397584?seq=14 |journal=Notes |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=225,229 |issn=0027-4380}}</ref> During the incarceration at permanent relocation camps, often times those with experience in classical Japanese song and dance were employed directly by the WRA.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Waseda |first=Minako |date=2005 |title=Extraordinary Circumstances, Exceptional Practices: Music in Japanese American Concentration Camps |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/187397 |journal=Journal of Asian American Studies |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=187 |issn=1096-8598}}</ref> Bando Misa, an inmate at Tule Lake and an instructor of Japanese classical dance, earned a salary of nineteen dollars a month through the camp’s Recreation Department.<ref name=":4" /> At Poston, Haruo “Foozie” Fujisawa, a member of The Music Makers, one of the many jazz bands spread throughout 9 of 10 relocation camps, transported his drum kit from home and gave lessons through the camp’s Music Department.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yoshida |first=George |url=https://archive.org/details/reminiscinginswi00yosh |title=Reminiscing in Swingtime: Japanese Americans in American Popular Music, 1925-1960 |date=January 1, 1997 |publisher=National Japanese American Historical Society |others= |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-881506-08-9 |pages=131, 135}}</ref> Class sizes varied across camps; generally, enrollment was in the double digits but could reach as many as 140 students in one class.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Waseda |first=Minako |date=2005 |title=Extraordinary Circumstances, Exceptional Practices: Music in Japanese American Concentration Camps |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/187397 |journal=Journal of Asian American Studies |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=184 |issn=1096-8598}}</ref> The ages of students extended beyond the typical classroom demographics of young Nisei and Sansei; the inclusion of Issei adults and seniors was not unheard of.<ref name=":5" />  

===Sports===
<gallery class="center">
File:Ansel Adams, Baseball game at Manzanar, 1943.jpg|A baseball game at Manzanar. Picture by [[Ansel Adams]], c. 1943.
File:Smithsonian photo of softball from Heart Mountain Relocation Center.jpg|[[Smithsonian]] photo of softball from the Heart Mountain Relocation Center
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A basketball game between the Roywl Dukes, which is a . . . - NARA - 539539.jpg|A basketball game at the Rohwer Relocation Center
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A group of girls who are residents at this center, and . . . - NARA - 538915.jpg|A group of girls around a puppy at a football game
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A tense moment in a football game between Stockton and . . . - NARA - 539139.jpg|A tense moment in a football game between the [[Stockton Assembly Center|Stockton]] and [[Santa Anita assembly center|Santa Anita]] teams
File:Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. A Judo class. Classes are held every afternoon and ev . . . - NARA - 538945.jpg|A [[judo]] class at Rohwer. Classes were held every afternoon and evening.
</gallery>
Although life in the camps was very difficult, Japanese Americans formed many different sports teams, including baseball and football teams.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.nps.gov/manz/historyculture/japanese-americans-at-manzanar.htm|title = Japanese Americans at Manzanar|access-date = February 10, 2015|website = National Park Service|publisher = United States}}</ref> In January 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued what came to be known as the "Green Light Letter" to MLB Commissioner [[Kenesaw Mountain Landis]], which urged him to continue playing [[Major League Baseball]] games despite the ongoing war. In it Roosevelt said that "baseball provides a recreation", and this was true for Japanese American incarcerees as well. Over 100 baseball teams were formed in the Manzanar camp so that Japanese Americans could have some recreation, and some of the team names were carry-overs from teams formed before the incarceration.<ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/upshot/for-incarcerated-japanese-americans-baseball-was-wearing-the-american-flag.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1|title = For Incarcerated Japanese-Americans, Baseball Was 'Wearing the American Flag'|date = June 20, 2014|access-date = February 10, 2015|website = New York Times|last = Michael|first = Beschloss}}</ref>

Both men and women participated in the sports. In some cases, the Japanese American baseball teams from the camps traveled to outside communities to play other teams. Incarcerees from Idaho competed in the state tournament in 1943, and there were games between the prison guards and the Japanese American teams.<ref name="Rafferty-Osaki">{{cite web|url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Sports_and_recreation_in_camp/#Football|title = Sports and recreation in camp|date = 2015|access-date = February 10, 2015|publisher = Densho Encyclopedia|last = Rafferty-Osaki|first = Terumi}}</ref> [[Branch Rickey]], who would be responsible for bringing [[Jackie Robinson]] into Major League Baseball in 1947, sent a letter to all of the WRA camps expressing interest in [[Scout (sport)|scouting]] some of the Nisei players. In the fall of 1943, three players tried out for the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]] in front of MLB scout [[George Sisler]], but none of them made the team.<ref name="Rafferty-Osaki"/>

=== Tule Lake Agricultural Program ===
The Tule Lake agricultural program was constructed with the purpose of growing crops in order to feed both detainees in their camp and in the other camps. It is said that any extras would be sold on the open market.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|last=Lillquist|first=Karl|date=September 2007|title=Imprisoned in the Desert: The Geography of World War II-Era, Japanese American Relocation Centers in the Western United States|url=https://www.cwu.edu/geography/sites/cts.cwu.edu.geography/files/chapter6tulelake.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170129164638/https://www.cwu.edu/geography/sites/cts.cwu.edu.geography/files/chapter6tulelake.pdf |archive-date=2017-01-29 |url-status=live}}</ref> The agricultural program was a way for inmates to be employed while at the center, as well as a way for some to learn farming skills. A 4-H program was established to pave a way for children to help the agricultural process at the center.<ref name=":1" /> From 1942 through 1945, Tule Lake produced 29 different crops, including Japanese vegetables like daikon, gobo, and nappa.<ref name=":1" />

===Student leave to attend Eastern colleges===
Japanese American students were no longer allowed to attend college in the West during the incarceration, and many found ways to transfer or attend schools in the Midwest and East in order to continue their education.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Ito |first=Leslie A. |date=2000 |title=Japanese American Women and the Student Relocation Movement, 1942-1945 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.2307/3347107|jstor=3347107 }}</ref>

Most Nisei college students followed their families into camp, but a small number arranged for transfers to schools outside the exclusion zone. Their initial efforts expanded as sympathetic college administrators and the [[American Friends Service Committee]] began to coordinate a larger student relocation program. The Friends petitioned WRA Director [[Milton S. Eisenhower|Milton Eisenhower]] to place college students in Eastern and Midwestern academic institutions.<ref name=":13">{{Cite web |title=National Japanese American Student Relocation Council {{!}} Densho Encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopedia.densho.org/National_Japanese_American_Student_Relocation_Council/ |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=encyclopedia.densho.org}}</ref>

The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council was formed on May 29, 1942, and the AFSC administered the program.<ref name=":13"/> The acceptance process vetted college students and graduating high school students through academic achievement and a questionnaire centering on their relationship with American culture.<ref name=":02" /> Some high school students were also able to leave the incarceration camps through boarding schools.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |title=From camp to college: the story of Japanese American student |url=http://oac-upstream.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4s2035pd/?&brand=oac4 |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=oac-upstream.cdlib.org}}</ref> 39 percent of the Nisei students were women.<ref name=":02" /> The student's tuition, book costs, and living expenses were absorbed by the U.S. government, private foundations (such as the Columbia Foundation and the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York|Carnegie Corporation]]) and church scholarships, in addition to significant fundraising efforts led by Issei parents in camp.<ref name=":13"/>

Outside camp, the students took on the role of "ambassadors of good will", and the NJASRC and WRA promoted this image to soften anti-Japanese prejudice and prepare the public for the resettlement of Japanese Americans in their communities. Some students worked as domestic workers in nearby communities during the school year.<ref name=":02" />

At [[Earlham College]], President William Dennis helped institute a program that enrolled several dozen Japanese American students in order to spare them from incarceration. While this action was controversial in [[Richmond, Indiana]], it helped strengthen the college's ties to Japan and the Japanese American community.<ref>[http://legacy.earlham.edu/~jpnstudies/documents/pdf/historical_brochure.pdf Historical brochure], Earlham College {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415100752/http://legacy.earlham.edu/~jpnstudies/documents/pdf/historical_brochure.pdf |date=April 15, 2012 }}</ref> At [[Park University|Park College]] in Missouri, Dr. William Lindsay Young attempted to get Nisei students enrolled despite backlash from the greater Parkville city.<ref name="The Battle of Parkville">{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Harold F. |date=2004 |title=The Battle of Parkville: Resistance to Japanese-American Students at Park College |journal=The Journal of Presbyterian History |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=46–51 |jstor=23336327 |issn=1521-9216}}</ref>

At [[Oberlin College]], about 40 evacuated Nisei students were enrolled. One of them, Kenji Okuda, was elected as student council president.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Oberlin Vouches For Them..." / Oberlin Alumni Magazine / Fall 2013 |url=https://www2.oberlin.edu/alummag/fall2013/internmentstudents.html |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=www2.oberlin.edu}}</ref> Three Nisei students were enrolled at [[Mount Holyoke College]] during World War 2.<ref name=":03">{{Cite journal |last=Ito |first=Leslie A. |date=2000 |title=Japanese American Women and the Student Relocation Movement, 1942-1945 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.2307/3347107|jstor=3347107 }}</ref>

In total, over 500 institutions east of the exclusion zone opened their doors to more than 3,000 college-age youth who had been placed behind barbed wire, many of whom were enrolled in West Coast schools prior to their removal. These included a variety of schools, from small liberal arts colleges to large public universities.<ref name=":22" /><ref name=":03" />

The NJASRC ceased operations on June 7, 1946.<ref name=":13"/> After the incarceration camps had been shut down, releasing many Issei parents with little belongings, many families followed the college students to the eastern cities where they attended school.<ref name=":22" /> In 1980, former Nisei students formed the NSRC Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund.<ref name=":03" /> In 2021, The [[University of Southern California]] apologized for discriminating against Nisei students.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=USC to apologize for sabotaging its Japanese American students' educations in WWII |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/usc-apologize-sabotaging-japanese-american-students-educations-wwii-rcna3320 |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=NBC News |date=October 19, 2021 |language=en}}</ref> It issued posthumous degrees to the students whose educations were cut short or illegitimated, having already issued degrees to those surviving.<ref name=":3" />

===Loyalty questions and segregation===

[[File:Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Lt. Eugene Bogard explains the purpose of the reg . . . - NARA - 536709.jpg|thumb|Lt. Eugene Bogard, commanding officer of the Army Registration team, explains the purpose of registration to a group of Japanese Americans at [[Manzanar]] (February 11, 1943). All inmates between the ages of 18 and 38 were compelled to register.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/ft9c6008rh/ |title=Lieutenant Eugene Bogard, Commanding Officer of the Army Registration team ... |date=February 15, 1943 |publisher=[[California Digital Library]]|access-date=October 16, 2020 }}</ref>]]
In early 1943, War Relocation Authority officials, working with the War Department and the Office of Naval Intelligence,<ref name="Lyon-LQ">Cherstin M. Lyon. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty%20questionnaire/ "Loyalty questionnaire,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia'' (accessed March 14, 2014).</ref> circulated a questionnaire in an attempt to determine the loyalty of incarcerated Nisei men they hoped to recruit into military service. The "Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry" was initially given only to Nisei who were eligible for service (or would have been, but for the 4-C classification imposed on them at the start of the war). Authorities soon revised the questionnaire and required all adults in camp to complete the form. Most of the 28 questions were designed to assess the "Americanness" of the respondent — had they been educated in Japan or the U.S.? were they Buddhist or Christian? did they practice ''judo'' or play on a baseball team?<ref name="Lyon-LQ"/> The final two questions on the form, which soon came to be known as the "loyalty questionnaire", were more direct:

{{blockquote|Question 27: Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?

Question 28: Will you swear unqualified allegiances to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?}}

Across the camps, people who answered No to both questions became known as "No Nos".

While most camp inmates simply answered "yes" to both questions, several thousand — 17 percent of the total respondents, 20 percent of the Nisei<ref name="Lyon-Seg">Cherstin M. Lyon. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Segregation/ "Segregation,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia'' (accessed March 14, 2014).</ref> — gave negative or qualified replies out of confusion, fear or anger at the wording and implications of the questionnaire. In regard to Question 27, many worried that expressing a willingness to serve would be equated with volunteering for combat, while others felt insulted at being asked to risk their lives for a country that had imprisoned them and their families. An affirmative answer to Question 28 brought up other issues. Some believed that renouncing their loyalty to Japan would suggest that they had at some point been loyal to Japan and disloyal to the United States. Many believed they were to be deported to Japan no matter how they answered, they feared an explicit disavowal of the Emperor would become known and make such resettlement extremely difficult.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lyon |first1=Cherstin |title=Questions 27 and 28 |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Questions_27_and_28/ |website=encyclopedia.densho.org |access-date=1 February 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Okihiro |first1=Gary Y. |title=Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment |date=2013 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-39916-9 |page=124 |edition=illustrated, reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfFcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA124 |access-date=2 February 2020 |language=en}}</ref>

On July 15, 1943, Tule Lake, the site with the highest number of "no" responses to the questionnaire, was designated to house inmates whose answers suggested they were "disloyal".<ref name="Lyon-Seg"/> During the remainder of 1943 and into early 1944, more than 12,000 men, women and children were transferred from other camps to the maximum-security Tule Lake Segregation Center.

Afterward, the government passed the [[Renunciation Act of 1944]], a law that made it possible for Nisei and [[Kibei]] to [[Renunciation of United States citizenship|renounce their American citizenship]].<ref name="Lyon-LQ"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Justice Denied |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied/chapter-7.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203080809/https://www.archives.gov/files/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied/chapter-7.pdf |archive-date=2017-02-03 |url-status=live |website=National Archives |access-date=1 February 2020 |language=en |date=15 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Okihiro |first1=Gary Y. |title=Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment |date=2013 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-39916-9 |pages=19, 282 |edition=illustrated, reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfFcAQAAQBAJ |access-date=1 February 2020 |language=en}}</ref> A total of 5,589 detainees opted to do so; 5,461 of these were sent to Tule Lake.<ref name=tulelake>{{cite web |url=http://www.tulelake.org/2004-pilgrimage/ |title=Tule Lake Committee - tulelake.org |publisher=tulelake.org |access-date=January 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100227044219/http://www.tulelake.org/2004-pilgrimage/ |archive-date=February 27, 2010 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Of those who renounced US citizenship, 1,327 were repatriated to Japan.<ref name=tulelake/> Those persons who stayed in the US faced discrimination from the Japanese American community, both during and after the war, for having made that choice of renunciation. At the time, they feared what their futures held were they to remain American and remain incarcerated.<ref name=tulelake/>

These renunciations of American citizenship have been highly controversial, for a number of reasons. Some apologists for incarceration have cited the renunciations as evidence that "disloyalty" or [[anti-Americanism]] was well represented among the incarcerated peoples, thereby justifying the incarceration.<ref>Malkin, Michelle. ''In Defense of Internment''. 2004, p. 111.</ref> Many historians have dismissed the latter argument, for its failure to consider that the small number of individuals in question had been mistreated and persecuted by their own government at the time of the "renunciation":<ref>Ng, Wendy L. ''Japanese American Internment During World War II''. 2002, p. 61</ref><ref name=niiya293>Niiya, Brian. ''Japanese American History''. 1993, p. 293</ref>

<blockquote>[T]he renunciations had little to do with "loyalty" or "disloyalty" to the United States, but were instead the result of a series of complex conditions and factors that were beyond the control of those involved. Prior to discarding citizenship, most or all of the renunciants had experienced the following misfortunes: forced removal from homes; loss of jobs; government and public assumption of disloyalty to the land of their birth based on race alone; and incarceration in a "segregation center" for "disloyal" ISSEI or NISEI...<ref name=niiya293 /></blockquote>

Minoru Kiyota, who was among those who renounced his citizenship and soon came to regret the decision, has said that he wanted only "to express my fury toward the government of the United States", for his incarceration and for the mental and physical duress, as well as the intimidation, he was made to face.<ref name=ngai>Ngai, Mae M. ''Impossible Subjects''. 2004, p. 192</ref>

{{blockquote|[M]y renunciation had been an expression of momentary emotional defiance in reaction to years of persecution suffered by myself and other Japanese Americans and, in particular, to the degrading interrogation by the FBI agent at [[Topaz War Relocation Center|Topaz]] and being terrorized by the guards and gangs at [[Tule Lake War Relocation Center|Tule Lake]].<ref>Kiyota, Minoru and Keenan, Linda Klepinger. ''Beyond Loyalty''. 1997, p. 129</ref>}}

Civil rights attorney [[Wayne M. Collins]] successfully challenged most of these renunciations as invalid, owing to the conditions of duress and intimidation under which the government obtained them.<ref name=ngai /><ref name=christgau>{{cite journal | last = Christgau | first = John | title = Collins versus the World: The Fight to Restore Citizenship to Japanese American Renunciants of World War II | journal=Pacific Historical Review | volume = 54 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–31 | publisher=University of California Press | date = February 1985 | jstor=3638863 | doi = 10.2307/3638863}}</ref> Many of the deportees were [[Issei]] (first generation) or Kibei, who often had difficulty with English and often did not understand the questions they were asked. Even among those Issei who had a clear understanding, Question 28 posed an awkward dilemma: Japanese immigrants were denied U.S. citizenship at the time, so when asked to renounce their Japanese citizenship, answering "Yes" would have made them [[Statelessness|stateless persons]].<ref>Yamamoto, Traise. ''Masking Selves, Making Subjects''. 1999, p. 284</ref>

When the government began seeking army volunteers from among the camps, only 6% of military-aged male inmates volunteered to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} Most of those who refused tempered that refusal with statements of willingness to fight if they were restored their rights as American citizens. Eventually 33,000 Japanese American men and many Japanese American women served in the U.S. military during World War II, of which 20,000 served in the U.S. Army.<ref name="javadc.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.javadc.org/AJA%20women_in_wwII.htm|title=Japanese American women in World World II}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Japanese Americans in military during World War II {{!}} Densho Encyclopedia |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Americans_in_military_during_World_War_II/ |website=encyclopedia.densho.org |access-date=6 June 2019}}</ref>

[[File:442nd US Army RCT squad leader in france.jpg|thumb|left|The [[100th Infantry Battalion|100th]]/[[442nd Infantry Regiment (United States)|442nd Regimental Combat Team]], which was composed primarily of [[Japanese American]]s, served with uncommon distinction in the [[European Theatre of World War II]]. Many of the soldiers from the continental U.S. serving in the units had families who were held in [[concentration camp]]s in the United States while they fought abroad.]]

The [[100th Infantry Battalion]], which was formed in June 1942 with 1,432 men of Japanese descent from the [[Hawaii National Guard]], was sent to Camps McCoy and Shelby for advanced training.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=100th Infantry Battalion |encyclopedia=Densho Encyclopedia |publisher=Densho |url=https://encyclopedia.densho.org/100th%20Infantry%20Battalion/}}</ref> Because of the 100th's superior training record, the War Department authorized the formation of the [[442nd Infantry Regiment (United States)|442nd Regimental Combat Team]]. When the call was made, 10,000 young men from Hawaii volunteered with eventually 2,686 being chosen along with 1,500 from the continental U.S.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=442nd Regimental Combat Team |encyclopedia=Densho Encyclopedia |publisher=Densho |url=https://encyclopedia.densho.org/442nd%20Regimental%20Combat%20Team/}}</ref> The 100th Infantry Battalion landed in Salerno, Italy in September 1943 and became known as the Purple Heart Battalion. This legendary outfit was joined by the 442nd RCT in June 1944, and this combined unit became the most highly decorated U.S. military unit of its size and duration in [[Military history of the United States|U.S. military history]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=1813|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071104172145/http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=1813|archive-date=November 4, 2007 |title=President Clinton Approves Medal of Honor for Asian Pacific American World War II Heroes |publisher=US Army |date=May 12, 2000 |access-date=October 20, 2008}}</ref> The 442nd's [[522nd Field Artillery Battalion|Nisei segregated field artillery battalion]], then on detached service within the U.S. Army in Bavaria, [[Dachau concentration camp#Satellite camps liberation|liberated at least one of the satellite labor camps]] of the Nazis' original [[Dachau concentration camp]] on April 29, 1945,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_campaigns_central.asp | title=Central Europe Campaign – (522nd Field Artillery Battalion) | publisher=Go For Broke National Education Center | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091125092614/http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_campaigns_central.asp | archive-date=November 25, 2009 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> and only days later, on May 2, halted [[Death marches (Holocaust)#Dachau to the Austrian border|a death march in southern Bavaria]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/central_europe_campaign.php |title=Central Europe Campaign – 522nd Field Artillery Battalion |access-date=2015-01-12 |quote=In fact, the brutal death marches south had already begun on April 24. Jewish prisoners from the outer Dachau camps were marched to Dachau, and then 70 miles south. Many of the Jewish marchers weighed less than 80 pounds. Shivering in their tattered striped uniforms, the "skeletons" marched 10 to 15 hours a day, passing more than a dozen Bavarian towns. If they stopped or fell behind, the SS guards shot them and left their corpses along the road. Thousands died from exposure, exhaustion, and starvation. On May 2, the death march was outside Waakirchen, Germany, near the Austrian border, when the 522nd came across the marchers. That day, soldiers from the 522nd were patrolling near Waakirchen. The Nisei saw an open field with several hundred "lumps in the snow". When the soldiers looked closer they realized the "lumps" were people. Some were shot. Some were dead from exposure. Hundreds were alive. But barely. The 522nd discovered hundreds of prisoners with black and white prison garb, shaven heads, sunken eyes, and hollowed cheeks. Some roamed aimlessly around the countryside. Some were too weak to move. All were severely malnourished. One soldier gave a starving Jewish prisoner a candy bar, but his system couldn't handle solid food. Then the Americans were told not to give food to the prisoners because it could do them more harm than good. For the next three days, the Nisei helped the prisoners to shelter and tended to their needs as best as they could. They carried the survivors into warm houses and barns. The soldiers gave them blankets, water and tiny bits of food to ease them back from starvation. The soldiers left Waakirchen on May 4, still deeply disturbed by the harrowing scenes of the Jewish prisoners. |archive-date=March 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320005449/http://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/central_europe_campaign.php }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ushmm.org/search/results/?q=Waakirchen|title=Search Results|website=www.ushmm.org}}</ref>

===Proving commitment to the United States===
Many Nisei worked to prove themselves as loyal American citizens. Of the 20,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Army during [[World War II]],<ref name="javadc.org"/> "many Japanese American soldiers had gone to war to fight racism at home"<ref>Takaki, Ronald T. "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America". Boston: Little, Brown. 1993. Print, p. 384.</ref> and they were "proving with their blood, their limbs, and their bodies that they were truly American".<ref>Takaki, Ronald T. "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America". Boston: Little, Brown 1993. Print, p. 385.</ref> Some one hundred Nisei women volunteered for the WAC ([[Women's Army Corps]]), where, after undergoing rigorous basic training, they had assignments as typists, clerks, and drivers.<ref name="Sandler, Martin 2013"/> A smaller number of women also volunteered to serve as nurses for the ANC ([[United States Army Nurse Corps|Army Nurse Corps]]).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military during World War II|last=Moore|first=Brenda L.|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8135-3278-3|location=New Brunswick, NJ|url=https://archive.org/details/servingourcountr00moor}}</ref> Satoshi Ito, an incarceration camp inmate, reinforces the idea of the immigrants' children striving to demonstrate their patriotism to the United States. He notes that his mother would tell him, {{"'}}you're here in the United States, you need to do well in school, you need to prepare yourself to get a good job when you get out into the larger society{{'"}}.<ref>Ito, Satoshi Interview. 01.MP3, "Ito Interview Interview Part 1", [https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/1479], time 11:35.</ref> He said she would tell him, {{"'}}don't be a dumb farmer like me, like us{{'"}}<ref>Ito, Satoshi Interview. 01.MP3, "Ito Interview Interview Part 1", [https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/1479], time 10:36.</ref> to encourage Ito to successfully assimilate into American society. As a result, he worked exceptionally hard to excel in school and later became a professor at the [[College of William & Mary]]. His story, along with the countless Japanese Americans willing to risk their lives in war, demonstrate the lengths many in their community went to prove their American patriotism.

===Other concentration camps===
{{Further|Internment of German Americans|Internment of Italian Americans|Internment of Japanese Canadians}}
As early as September 1931, after the [[Japanese invasion of Manchuria]], US officials began to compile lists of individuals, lists which were particularly focused on the Issei.<ref name="Kashima2003"/>{{rp|16}} This data was eventually included in the [[Custodial Detention index]] (CDI). Agents in the Department of Justice's Special Defense Unit classified the subjects into three groups: A, B, and C, with A being the "most dangerous", and C being "possibly dangerous".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |title=Custodial detention / A-B-C list |work=densho.org |author=Tetsuden Kashima |access-date=September 29, 2019}}</ref>

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt authorized his attorney general to put a plan for the arrest of thousands of individuals whose names were on the potential enemy alien lists into motion, most of these individuals were Japanese American community leaders. Armed with a blanket arrest warrant, the FBI seized these men on the eve of December 8, 1941. These men were held in municipal jails and prisons until they were moved to Department of Justice detention camps, these camps were separate from the camps which were operated by the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA). These camps were operated under far more stringent conditions and they were also patrolled by heightened criminal-style guards, despite the absence of criminal proceedings.<ref name="Kashima2003"/>{{rp|43–66}} Memoirs about the camps include those by [[Keiho Soga]]<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/lifebehindbarbed00soga_0 |title=Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawaiʻi Issei |publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press |location=Honolulu |author=Keiho Soga |year=2008}}</ref> and Toru Matsumoto.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Brother is a Stranger |publisher=John Day Company |location=New York |author=Toru Matsumoto |year=1946 }}</ref>

[[Crystal City, Texas]], was one such camp where Japanese Americans, [[Internment of German Americans|German Americans]], and [[Internment of Italian Americans|Italian Americans]] were interned along with a large number of [[Axis powers|Axis]]-descended nationals who were seized from several Latin-American countries by the U.S.<ref name=texasarchive /><ref name=jla/>

The Canadian government also confined [[Japanese Canadians|its citizens with Japanese ancestry]] during World War II (see [[Internment of Japanese Canadians]]), for many reasons which were also based on fear and prejudice. Some [[Latin America during World War II|Latin American countries]] on the Pacific Coast, such as [[Peru]], interned [[Japanese Peruvians|ethnic Japanese]] or sent them to the United States for incarceration.<ref name=jla/> [[Brazil]] also [[Japanese Brazilian#Prejudice and forced assimilation|imposed restrictions]] on its [[Japanese Brazilians|ethnic Japanese]] population.<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Agence France-Presse]]/[[Jiji Press]], "Peru sorry for WWII internments", ''[[Japan Times]]'', June 16, 2011, p. 2.</ref>

===Hawaii===
Although [[Japanese in Hawaii|Japanese Americans in Hawaii]] comprised more than one-third of Hawaii's entire population, businessmen{{Who|date=August 2024}} prevented their incarceration or deportation to the concentration camps which were located on the mainland because they recognized their contributions to Hawaii's economy.<ref>"The territorial governor of Hawaii, Joseph B. Poindexter, was more measured. He provided statistics indicating that 34 percent of the islands' population was aliens, or citizens of Japanese descent." Frank, Richard B. "Zero Hour on Niihau," ''World War II'', 24: 2 (July 2009) p54.</ref> In the hysteria of the time, some mainland Congressmen (Hawaii was only an [[Incorporated Territory|incorporated U.S. territory]] at the time, and despite being fully part of the U.S., did not have a voting representative or senator in Congress) promoted that all [[Japanese Americans]] and Japanese immigrants should be removed from Hawaii but were unsuccessful. An estimated 1,200 to 1,800 Japanese nationals and American-born Japanese from Hawaii were interned or incarcerated, either in five camps on the islands or in one of the mainland concentration camps, but this represented well-under two percent of the total Japanese American residents in the islands.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/reports-to-the-legislature/2008/2008/shpd/HP08-Japanese-Internment-Camp%20-Act163SLH07.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527114752/http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/reports-to-the-legislature/2008/2008/shpd/HP08-Japanese-Internment-Camp%20-Act163SLH07.pdf |archive-date=May 27, 2010 |title=Japanese Internment Camps In Hawaii |access-date=December 5, 2011}}</ref> "No serious explanations were offered as to why ... the internment of individuals of Japanese descent was necessary on the mainland, but not in Hawaii, where the large Japanese-Hawaiian population went largely unmolested."<ref>Library of Congress. Behind the Wire</ref>

The vast majority of Japanese Americans and their immigrant parents in Hawaii were not incarcerated because the government had already declared [[martial law]] in Hawaii, a legal measure which allowed it to significantly reduce the supposed risks of espionage and sabotage by residents of Hawaii who had Japanese ancestry.<ref name=Scheiber>Jane L. Scheiber, Harry N. Scheiber. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Martial%20law%20in%20Hawaii/ "Martial law in Hawaii,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved July 15, 2014.</ref> Also, Japanese Americans comprised over 35% of the territory's entire population: they numbered 157,905 out of a total population of 423,330 at the time of the 1940 census,<ref>Gibson, Campbell and Kay, Jung. Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990</ref> making them the largest ethnic group at that time; detaining so many people would have been enormously challenging in terms of logistics. Additionally, the whole of Hawaiian society was dependent on their productivity. According to intelligence reports which were published at the time, "the Japanese, through a concentration of effort in select industries, had achieved a virtual stranglehold on several key sectors of the economy in Hawaii,"<ref>Okihiro, Gary. ''Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865–1945''. Temple University Press, 1st edition (January 8, 1992) p117.</ref> and they "had access to virtually all jobs in the economy, including high-status, high-paying jobs (e.g., professional and managerial jobs)".<ref>Chin, Aimee. "Long-Run Labor Market Effects of Japanese American Internment During World War II on Working-Age Male Internees," ''Journal of Labor Economics'', University of Houston (2004) p10.</ref> To imprison such a large percentage of the islands' work force would have crippled the Hawaiian economy. Thus, the unfounded fear of Japanese Americans turning against the United States was overcome by the reality-based fear of massive economic loss.

Despite the financial and logistical obstacles, President Roosevelt persisted for quite some time in urging incarceration of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.  As late as February 26, 1942, he informed Secretary of the Navy Knox that he had "long felt that most of the Japanese should be removed from  Oahu to one of the other Islands." While Roosevelt conceded that such an undertaking involved "much planning, much temporary construction, and 
careful supervision of them when they get to the new location," he did not "worry about the constitutional question—first, because of my recent order and, second, because Hawaii is under martial law." He called for Knox to work with Stimson and "go ahead and do it as a military project."  Eventually, he too gave up the project.<ref>Beito, p. 176-177.</ref>

Lieutenant General [[Delos C. Emmons]], the commander of the Hawaii Department, promised that the local Japanese American community would be treated fairly as long as it remained loyal to the United States. He succeeded in blocking efforts to relocate it to the outer islands or the mainland by pointing out the logistical difficulties of such a move.<ref>{{cite web|title=Guarding the United States and Its Outposts|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-WH-Guard/USA-WH-Guard-8.html|work=United States Army in World War II|publisher=United States Army Center of Military History|access-date=November 7, 2011|author=Stetson Conn |author2=Rose C. Engelman |author3=Byron Fairchild|date=May 1961}}</ref> Among the small number incarcerated were community leaders and prominent politicians, including territorial legislators [[Thomas Sakakihara]] and [[Sanji Abe]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Sep/16/op/op06a.html|periodical=The Honolulu Advertiser|last=Dye|first=Bob|date=September 16, 2001|access-date=December 23, 2009|title=How bigots 'cleansed' Legislature in 1942}}</ref>

Five concentration camps were operated in the territory of Hawaii, referred to as the "Hawaiian Island Detention Camps".<ref name="HA20051127">{{Cite news|url=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Nov/27/ln/FP511270347.html|periodical=The Honolulu Advertiser|title=Wartime stain in history retraced in O'ahu's brush|last=Gordon|first=Mike|date=November 27, 2005|access-date=December 10, 2009}}</ref><ref name="HA20060205">{{Cite news|url=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Feb/05/ln/FP602050354.html|periodical=The Honolulu Advertiser|date=February 5, 2006|access-date=December 10, 2009|last=Gordon|first=Mike|title=Under Honouliuli brush, dark history}}</ref> One camp was located on [[Sand Island (Hawaii)|Sand Island]], at the mouth of [[Honolulu]] Harbor. This camp was constructed before the outbreak of the war. All of the prisoners who were held there were "detained under military custody... because of the imposition of martial law throughout the Islands". It was replaced by the [[Honouliuli Internment Camp]], near Ewa, on the southwestern shore of Oahu in 1943. Another was located in [[Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii|Haiku]], [[Maui]],<ref name="MT8207">{{Cite news|url=http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2007-08-02-174168.112113-The-Camp.html|periodical=Maui Time|title=The Camp|last=Greg Mebel|first=Anthony Pignataro|date=August 20, 2007|access-date=April 4, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120920082303/http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2007-08-02-174168.112113-The-Camp.html|archive-date=September 20, 2012|df=mdy-all}}</ref> in addition to the [[Kilauea Military Camp|Kilauea Detention Center]] on [[Hawaii (island)|Hawaii]] and Camp Kalaheo on [[Kauai]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.starbulletin.com/content/20091207_exhibit_shows_the_harsh_life_of_honouliuli_internment_camp|title=Hawaii News Archive - Starbulletin.com|first=Honolulu|last=Star-Bulletin|website=archives.starbulletin.com}}</ref>

===Japanese Latin Americans===
<!-- Some of the following was taken from http://www.nps.gov/manz/ccdoj.htm which is a US government source and public domain. -->During World War II, over 2,200 Japanese from Latin America were held in concentration camps run by the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]], part of the Department of Justice. Beginning in 1942, Latin Americans of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and transported to American concentration camps run by the INS and the U.S. Justice Department.<ref name=niiya /><ref name="OCLC 606835431">{{cite book | last = Connell | first = Thomas | year = 2002 | title = America's Japanese Hostages: The US Plan For A Japanese Free Hemisphere | publisher = Praeger-Greenwood | isbn = 978-0-275-97535-7 | oclc = 606835431 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/americasjapanese00conn }}</ref><ref name = "GregRobinson">{{cite book | last = Robinson | first = Greg | year = 2001 | title = By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans | page = 264n2 | url = https://archive.org/details/byorderofpreside00robi/page/264 | url-access = registration | quote=citing C. Harvey Gardiner, ''Pawns in a Triangle of Hate'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981.}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite news | last = Nanami | first = Masaharu | url = https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/09/16/national/japanese-peruvians-still-angry-over-wartime-internment-in-u-s-camps | title = Japanese-Peruvians still angry over wartime internment in U.S. camps | work = [[Japan Times]] | date = September 16, 2009 | access-date = June 25, 2019 | archive-date = July 14, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190714042904/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/09/16/national/japanese-peruvians-still-angry-over-wartime-internment-in-u-s-camps | url-status = dead }}</ref> Most of these internees, approximately 1,800, came from Peru. An additional 250 were from Panama, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.<ref name = "Mak">{{cite web | first = Stephen | last = Mak | url = http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese%20Latin%20Americans | title = Japanese Latin Americans | publisher = Densho | access-date =  March 5, 2014}}</ref>

The first group of Japanese Latin Americans arrived in San Francisco on April 20, 1942, on board the ''Etolin'' along with 360 ethnic Germans and 14 ethnic Italians from Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.<ref name="Gardiner.25-29">C. Harvey Gardiner. ''Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States'' (University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1981), 25–29.</ref> The 151 men — ten from Ecuador, the rest from Peru — had volunteered for deportation believing they were to be repatriated to Japan. They were denied visas by U.S. Immigration authorities and then detained on the grounds they had tried to enter the country illegally, without a visa or passport.<ref name="Gardiner.25-29"/> Subsequent transports brought additional "volunteers", including the wives and children of men who had been deported earlier. A total of 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans, about two-thirds of them from Peru, were interned in facilities on the U.S. mainland during the war.<ref name=niiya/><ref name="Mak"/><ref>Connel, Thomas. ''America's Japanese Hostages'': 2002, pp. 145–48</ref>

The United States originally intended to trade these Latin American internees as part of a hostage exchange program with Japan and other Axis nations;<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/manz/ccdoj.htm "Department of Justice and U.S. Army Facilities"], [[U.S. National Park Service]]. Retrieved August 31, 2006.</ref> at least one trade occurred.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/> Over 1,300 persons of Japanese ancestry were exchanged for a like number of non-official Americans in October 1943, at the port of [[Marmagao]], India. Over half were Japanese Latin Americans (the rest being ethnic Germans and Italians) and of that number one-third were Japanese Peruvians.

On September 2, 1943, the Swedish ship ''[[MS Gripsholm]]'' departed the U.S. with just over 1,300 Japanese nationals (including nearly a hundred from Canada and Mexico) en route for the exchange location, [[Marmagao]], the main port of the Portuguese colony of [[Goa]] on the west coast of India.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/>{{rp|Table 13-1}}<ref>* {{Cite book |title=Japanese-American civilian prisoner exchanges and detention camps, 1941–45 |last=Elleman |first=Bruce |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-33188-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00elle_0 |url-access=registration |access-date=September 14, 2009}}</ref> After two more stops in South America to take on additional Japanese nationals, the passenger manifest reached 1,340.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/> Of that number, Latin American Japanese numbered 55 percent of the Gripsholm's travelers, 30 percent of whom were Japanese Peruvian.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/> Arriving in Marmagao on October 16, 1943, the Gripsholm's passengers disembarked and then boarded the Japanese ship ''[[MS Aramis|Teia Maru]].'' In return, "non-official" Americans (secretaries, butlers, cooks, embassy staff workers, etc.) previously held by the Japanese Army boarded the ''Gripsholm'' while the ''Teia Maru'' headed for Tokyo.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/> Because this exchange was done with those of Japanese ancestry officially described as "volunteering" to [[Repatriation|return to Japan]], no legal challenges were encountered. The U.S. Department of State was pleased with the first trade and immediately began to arrange a second exchange of non-officials for February 1944. This exchange would involve 1,500 non-volunteer Japanese who were to be exchanged for 1,500 Americans.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/> The US was busy with Pacific Naval activity and future trading plans stalled. Further slowing the program were legal and political "turf" battles between the State Department, the Roosevelt administration, and the DOJ, whose officials were not convinced of the legality of the program.

The completed October 1943 trade took place at the height of the Enemy Alien Deportation Program. Japanese Peruvians were still being "rounded up" for shipment to the U.S. in previously unseen numbers. Despite logistical challenges facing the floundering prisoner exchange program, deportation plans were moving ahead. This is partly explained by an early-in-the-war revelation of the overall goal for Latin Americans of Japanese ancestry under the Enemy Alien Deportation Program. Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote an agreeing President Roosevelt, "[that the US must] continue our efforts to remove all the Japanese from these American Republics for internment in the United States."<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/><ref>Correspondence, Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, 740.00115 European War 1939/4476, PS/THH, August 27, 1942.</ref>

"Native" Peruvians expressed extreme animosity toward their Japanese citizens and [[expatriate]]s, and Peru refused to accept the post-war return of Japanese Peruvians from the US. Although a small number asserting special circumstances, such as marriage to a non-Japanese Peruvian,<ref name=niiya/> did return, the majority were trapped. Their home country refused to take them back (a political stance Peru maintained until 1950<ref name="Mak"/>), they were generally Spanish speakers in the Anglo US, and in the postwar U.S., the Department of State started expatriating them to Japan. Civil rights attorney [[Wayne M. Collins|Wayne Collins]] filed injunctions on behalf of the remaining internees,<ref name=jla>Densho, The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. [https://web.archive.org/web/20040921075331/http://www.densho.org/learning/spice/lesson4/4activity4-7handouts.pdf "Japanese Latin Americans,"] c. 2003, accessed April 12, 2009.</ref><ref name=sfjhw>{{cite web | title=Japanese Americans, the Civil Rights Movement and Beyond| url=http://www.nddcreative.com/sfjhw/sfjhw_pdf/sfjhw_sign2.pdf| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714161530/http://www.nddcreative.com/sfjhw/sfjhw_pdf/sfjhw_sign2.pdf| archive-date=July 14, 2011| access-date=April 10, 2009}}</ref> helping them obtain "parole" relocation to the labor-starved [[Seabrook, New Jersey|Seabrook Farms]] in New Jersey.<ref>Higashide, Seiichi. (2000).[[iarchive:adiostotearsmemo00unse/page/193|<!-- quote=Adios to Tears: The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S. Concentration Camps. --> ''Adios to Tears,'' p. 179.]]</ref> He started a legal battle that was not resolved until 1953, when, after working as undocumented immigrants for almost ten years, those Japanese Peruvians remaining in the U.S. were finally offered citizenship.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/><ref name="Mak"/>

==Incarceration ends==
On December 18, 1944, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] handed down two decisions on the legality of the incarceration under Executive Order 9066. ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]'', a 6–3 decision upholding a Nisei's conviction for violating the military exclusion order, stated that, in general, the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast was constitutional. However, ''[[Ex parte Endo]]'' unanimously declared on that same day that loyal citizens of the United States, regardless of cultural descent, could not be detained without cause.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hakim |first=Joy |title=A History of Us: War, Peace and All That Jazz |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=0-19-509514-6 |location=New York |pages=100–04}}</ref><ref name="transcript">{{ussc|name=Ex parte Endo|323|283|1944}}. {{usgovpd}}</ref> In effect, the two rulings held that, while the eviction of American citizens in the name of military necessity was legal, the subsequent incarceration was not—thus paving the way for their release.

Having been alerted to the Court's decision, the Roosevelt administration issued Public Proclamation No. 21 the day before the ''Korematsu'' and ''Endo'' rulings were made public, on December 17, 1944, rescinding the exclusion orders and declaring that Japanese Americans could return to the West Coast the next month.<ref name="Imai-KvUS">Shiho Imai. "[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Korematsu%20v.%20United%20States/ Korematsu v. United States]" ''Densho Encyclopedia'' (accessed 5 June 2014).</ref>

Although [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA) Director [[Dillon Myer]] and others had pushed for an earlier end to the incarceration, the Japanese Americans were not allowed to return to the West Coast until January 2, 1945, after the November 1944 election, so as not to impede Roosevelt's reelection campaign.<ref>{{cite web|last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Franklin%20D.%20Roosevelt/ |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=January 27, 2015}}</ref> Many younger detainees had already been sent to Midwest or Eastern cities to pursue work or educational opportunities. For example, 20,000 were sent to [[Lake View, Chicago]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Nagasawa|first1=Katherine|title=What happened to Chicago's Japanese neighborhood?|url=http://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/chicago-japanese-neighborhood/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=[[WBEZ]]|date=13 August 2017}}</ref> The remaining population began to leave the camps to try to rebuild their lives at home. Former inmates were given $25 and a train ticket to wherever they wanted to go, but many had little or nothing to return to, having lost their homes and businesses. When Japanese Americans were sent to the camps they could only take a few items with them and while incarcerated could only work for menial jobs with a small monthly salary of $12–$19. When incarceration ended, they therefore had few savings to survive on.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Pearson|first=Bradford|date=2020-08-20|title=For Japanese-Americans, Housing Injustices Outlived Internment|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/magazine/japanese-internment-end-wwii-trailer-parks.html|access-date=2020-10-23|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Some emigrated to Japan, although many of these were repatriated against their will.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/202_tulelakefeature.html|title=PBS Investigations of the Tule Lake Camp. Retrieved August&nbsp;24, 2007.|website=[[PBS]]|access-date=September 1, 2017|archive-date=March 30, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330074140/http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/202_tulelakefeature.html}}</ref><ref>Tule Lake Committee, "[http://www.tulelake.org History]." Retrieved January 27, 2015.</ref> The camps remained open for residents who were not ready to return (mostly elderly Issei and families with young children), but the WRA pressured stragglers to leave by gradually eliminating services in camp. Those who had not left by each camp's close date were forcibly removed and sent back to the West Coast.<ref>{{cite web|last=Robinson |first=Greg |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/War%20Relocation%20Authority/ |title=War Relocation Authority |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=January 27, 2015}}</ref>

Nine of the ten WRA camps were shut down by the end of 1945, although Tule Lake, which held "renunciants" slated for deportation to Japan, was not closed until March 20, 1946.<ref>"Japanese Americans Internment Camps During World War II," [https://web.archive.org/web/20070619073757/http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/photo/9066/9066.htm Library web page at Utah.edu]. Retrieved October 1, 2006.</ref><ref name="nps">{{cite news |last1=Burton |first1=J. |last2=Farrell |first2=M. |last3=Lord |first3=F. |last4=Lord |first4=R. |title=Confinement and Ethnicity (Chapter 3) |work=www.nps.gov |publisher=[[National Park Service]] |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anthropology74/ce3o.htm |access-date=November 30, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Japanese American Internment » Tule Lake |url=http://njahs.org/confinementsites/tule-lake/ |access-date=November 30, 2016 |website=njahs.org |publisher=National Japanese American Historical Society}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Weik |first1=Taylor |date=March 16, 2016 |title=Behind Barbed Wire: Remembering America's Largest Internment Camp |publisher=[[NBC News]] |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/behind-barbed-wire-remembering-america-s-largest-internment-camp-n535086 |access-date=November 30, 2016}}</ref> Japanese Latin Americans brought to the U.S. from Peru and other countries, who were still being held in the DOJ camps at Santa Fe and Crystal City, took legal action in April 1946 in an attempt to avoid deportation to Japan.<ref name="OCLC 606835431"/>{{rp|223}}

==Aftermath==
{{Further|Japanese-American life after World War II}}

===Hardship and material loss===
[[File:Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. Not all the center residents will return to their form . . . - NARA - 539932.jpg|thumb|Graveyard at the Granada Relocation Center in Amache, Colorado]]
[[File:Manzanar shrine.jpg|thumb|A monument at Manzanar, "to console the souls of the dead"]]
[[File:GranadaBoyScoutFlagRaising.jpg|thumb|Boy Scouts at the [[Granada War Relocation Center]] raise the flag to half-staff during a memorial service for the first six Nisei soldiers from this Center who were killed in action in Italy. The service was attended by 1,500 [[Granada War Relocation Center|Amache]] internees. August 5, 1944.]]
Many detainees lost irreplaceable personal property due to restrictions that prohibited them from taking more than they could carry into the camps. These losses were compounded by theft and destruction of items placed in governmental storage. Leading up to their incarceration, [[Japanese diaspora#Terminology|Nikkei]] were prohibited from leaving the Military Zones or traveling more than {{convert|5|mi}} from home, forcing those who had to travel for work, like truck farmers and residents of rural towns, to quit their jobs.<ref>[http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/intern1.html "Enemy Alien Curfew Friday: German, Japs, Italians in New Restrictions"] (March 24, 1942), ''The San Francisco News''. Retrieved February 5, 2015.</ref> Many others were simply fired for their Japanese heritage.<ref>Long, Priscilla. [http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3642 "Seattle School Board accepts the forced resignation of Japanese American teachers on February 27, 1942"] (November 25, 2001), HistoryLink.org. Retrieved February 5, 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Hall |first=Carla |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-feb-28-me-23915-story.html |title=Japanese Fired in WWII Win Redress |date=February 28, 1998 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=February 5, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Hirai |first=Tomo |url=https://www.nichibei.org/2013/09/state-legislature-passes-resolution-apologizing-to-fired-employees/ |title=State Legislature passes resolution apologizing to fired employees |date=September 5, 2013 |work=Nichi Bei Weekly |access-date=February 5, 2015 }}</ref>

Many Japanese Americans encountered continued housing injustice after the war.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Pearson|first=Bradford|date=2020-08-20|title=For Japanese-Americans, Housing Injustices Outlived Internment|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/magazine/japanese-internment-end-wwii-trailer-parks.html|access-date=2020-09-07|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Alien land laws in California, Oregon, and Washington barred the Issei from owning their pre-war homes and farms. Many had cultivated land for decades as [[tenant farmer]]s, but they lost their rights to farm those lands when they were forced to leave. Other Issei (and Nisei who were renting or had not completed payments on their property) had found families willing to occupy their homes or tend their farms during their incarceration. However, those unable to strike a deal with caretakers had to sell their property, often in a matter of days and at great financial loss to predatory land speculators, who made huge profits.

In addition to these monetary and property losses, there were seven who were shot and killed by sentries: Kanesaburo Oshima, 58, during an escape attempt from Fort Sill, Oklahoma; [[Lordsburg Killings|Toshio Kobata, 58, and Hirota Isomura, 59]], during transfer to Lordsburg, New Mexico; James Ito, 17, and Katsuji James Kanegawa, 21, during the December 1942 [[Manzanar#Resistance|Manzanar Riot]]; James Hatsuaki Wakasa, 65, while walking near the perimeter wire of Topaz; and Shoichi James Okamoto, 30, during a verbal altercation with a sentry at the Tule Lake Segregation Center.<ref name=homicideincamp>Kashima, Tetsuden. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Homicide%20in%20camp/ "Homicide in Camp,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved February 5, 2015.</ref>

Hatano Farm is located south of Los Angeles. It was shut down in 2022 by city officials, but recently gained status as a point of historical interest by vote from the California State Resources Commission. Upon returning from incarceration, U.S. Army veteran James Hatano settled and began to grow flowers. His land was located in Rancho Palos Verdes and was acquired through a federal lease in 1953.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2023-05-01 |title=Preserving the Legacy of Japanese American Farms in Southern California (Published 2023) |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/us/hatano-farm-japanese-american-california.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240926134947/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/us/hatano-farm-japanese-american-california.html |archive-date=September 26, 2024 |access-date=2024-12-13 |language=en |url-status=live |last1=Morino |first1=Douglas }}</ref> Hatano was one of the only returning Japanese who decided to farm again.

Psychological injury was observed by [[Dillon S. Myer]], director of the WRA camps. In June 1945, Myer described how the Japanese Americans had grown increasingly depressed and overcome with feelings of helplessness and personal insecurity.<ref name="Myer">"The WRA says Thirty," ''New Republic'' 112, pp. 867–68.</ref> Author Betty Furuta explains that the Japanese used ''[[Gaman (term)|gaman]],'' loosely meaning "perseverance", to overcome hardships; this was mistaken by non-Japanese as being introverted and lacking initiative.<ref>{{cite book|last=Niiya|first=Brian|url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias|url-access=registration|title=Japanese American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present|year=1993|publisher=Facts On File|location=New York|isbn=0-8160-2680-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias/page/143 143]}}</ref>

Japanese Americans also encountered hostility and even violence when they returned to the West Coast. Concentrated largely in rural areas of Central California, there were dozens of reports of gunshots, fires, and explosions aimed at Japanese American homes, businesses, and places of worship, in addition to non-violent crimes like vandalism and the defacing of Japanese graves. In one of the few cases that went to trial, four men were accused of attacking the Doi family of [[Placer County, California]], setting off an explosion, and starting a fire on the family's farm in January 1945. Despite a confession from one of the men that implicated the others, the jury accepted their defense attorney's framing of the attack as a justifiable attempt to keep California "a white man's country" and acquitted all four defendants.<ref>Niiya, Brian. [http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Terrorist%20incidents%20against%20West%20Coast%20returnees/ "Terrorist incidents against West Coast returnees,"] ''Densho Encyclopedia''. Retrieved February 5, 2015.</ref>

To compensate former detainees for their property losses, Congress passed the [[Japanese-American Claims Act]] on July 2, 1948, allowing Japanese Americans to apply for compensation for property losses which occurred as "a reasonable and natural consequence of the evacuation or exclusion". By the time the Act was passed, the [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] had already destroyed most of the detainees' 1939–42 tax records. Due to the time pressure and strict limits on how much they could take to the camps, few were able to preserve detailed tax and financial records during the evacuation process. Therefore, it was extremely difficult for claimants to establish that their claims were valid. Under the Act, Japanese American families filed 26,568 claims totaling $148&nbsp;million in requests; about $37&nbsp;million was approved and disbursed.<ref>Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment, ''[https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied/chapter-4.pdf Personal Justice Denied]'', Chapter 4</ref>

The different placement for the detainees had significant consequences for their lifetime outcomes.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |url=http://scholar.harvard.edu/shoag/publications/long-run-causal-impact-place-evidence-income-and-mobility-effects-japanese|title=The Causal Effect of Place: Evidence from Japanese-American Internment |website=Harvard College |access-date=August 8, 2016|last1=Carollo|first1=Nick|last2=Shoag|first2=Daniel}}</ref> A 2016 study finds, using the random dispersal of detainees into camps in seven different states, that the people assigned to richer locations did better in terms of income, education, socioeconomic status, house prices, and housing quality roughly fifty years later.<ref name=":0" />

===Reparations and redress===
{{Further|Japanese American redress and court cases}}
{{See also|Go for Broke Monument#Quotations below the main inscription}}

Beginning in the 1960s, a younger generation of Japanese Americans, inspired by the [[civil rights movement]], began what is known as the "Redress Movement", an effort to obtain an official apology and reparations from the federal government for incarcerating their parents and grandparents during the war. They focused not on documented property losses but on the broader injustice and mental suffering caused by the incarceration. The movement's first success was in 1976, when President [[Gerald Ford]] proclaimed that the incarceration was "wrong", and a "national mistake" which "shall never again be repeated".<ref>Stone, Geoffrey R. ''Perilous Times''. 2004, p. 305</ref> President Ford signed a proclamation formally terminating Executive Order 9066 and apologized for the incarceration, stating: "We now know what we should have known then—not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans have been and continue to be written in history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation."<ref>[http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760111p.htm President Gerald R. Ford's Proclamation 4417] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171204124325/http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760111p.htm |date=December 4, 2017 }}.</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=President Gerald R. Ford's Remarks Upon Signing a Proclamation Concerning Japanese-American Internment During World War II|url=https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760111.htm|website=Ford Library Museum|access-date=January 30, 2017|archive-date=February 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217082149/https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760111.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The campaign for redress was launched by Japanese Americans in 1978. The [[Japanese American Citizens League]] (JACL), which had cooperated with the administration during the war, became part of the movement. It asked for three measures: $25,000 to be awarded to each person who was detained, an apology from Congress acknowledging publicly that the U.S. government had been wrong, and the release of funds to set up an educational foundation for the children of Japanese American families.

In 1980, under the [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Carter administration]], Congress established the [[Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians]] (CWRIC) to study the matter. On February 24, 1983, the commission issued a report entitled ''Personal Justice Denied'', condemning the incarceration as unjust and motivated by racism and xenophobic ideas rather than factual military necessity.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/personal_justice_denied/intro.htm |title=Personal Justice Denied|publisher=Nps.gov |date=January 8, 2007 |access-date=April 1, 2015}}</ref> Concentration camp survivors sued the federal government for $24&nbsp;million in property loss, but lost the case. However, the Commission recommended that $20,000 in reparations be paid to those Japanese Americans who had suffered incarceration.<ref>Barth, Gunther. "Japanese Americans." The New Encyclopedia of the American West, edited by Howard R. Lamar, Yale University Press, 1st edition, 1998. Credo Reference, http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/americanwest/japanese_americans/0 Accessed 29 Mar 2017.</ref>

The [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]] exemplified the Japanese American redress movement that impacted the large debate about the reparation bill. There was question over whether the bill would pass during the 1980s due to the poor state of the federal budget and the low support of Japanese Americans covering 1% of the United States. However, four powerful Japanese American Democrats and Republicans who had war experience, with the support of Democratic congressmen [[Barney Frank]], sponsored the bill and pushed for its passage as their top priority.<ref>Brooks, Roy L. "Japanese American Internment and Relocation." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by Patrick L. Mason, Gale, 2nd edition, 2013. Credo Reference, http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/galerace/japanese_american_internment_and_relocation/0 Accessed 29 Mar 2017.</ref>

[[File:Ronald Reagan signing Japanese reparations bill.jpg|thumb|left|U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]] in August 1988, which granted reparations for the incarceration of Japanese Americans]]
On August 10, 1988, U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which had been sponsored by several representatives including Barney Frank, [[Norman Mineta]], and [[Bob Matsui]] in the House and by [[Spark Matsunaga]] who got 75 co-sponsors in the Senate, provided financial redress of $20,000 for each former detainee who was still alive when the act was passed, totaling $1.2&nbsp;billion. The question of to whom reparations should be given, how much, and even whether monetary reparations were appropriate were subjects of sometimes contentious debate within the Japanese American community and Congress.<ref>Hatamiya, Leslie T. ''Righting a Wrong''. 1994, pp. 108–09</ref>

On September 27, 1992, the Civil Liberties Act Amendments of 1992, appropriating an additional $400&nbsp;million to ensure all remaining detainees received their $20,000 redress payments, was signed into law by President [[George H. W. Bush]]. He issued another formal apology from the U.S. government on December 7, 1991, on the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, saying:
<blockquote>In remembering, it is important to come to grips with the past. No nation can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look with clear eyes at all the glories and disgraces of its past. We in the United States acknowledge such an injustice in our history. The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be repeated.</blockquote>

Over 81,800 people qualified by 1998 and $1.6&nbsp;billion was distributed among them.<ref>Kashima, Tetsuden. "Internment Camps." Encyclopedia of American Studies, edited by Simon Bronner, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st edition, 2016. Credo Reference, http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/jhueas/internment_camps/0 Accessed 29 Mar 2017.</ref>

Under the 2001 budget of the United States, Congress authorized the preservation of ten detention sites as historical landmarks: "places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency".<ref>Tateishi and Yoshino 2000</ref>

President [[Bill Clinton]] awarded the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]], the highest civilian honor in the United States, to Korematsu in 1998, saying, "In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls: [[Homer Plessy|Plessy]], [[Oliver Brown (plaintiff)|Brown]], [[Rosa Parks|Parks]]&nbsp;... to that distinguished list, today we add the name of Fred Korematsu." That year, Korematsu served as the [[Grand marshal|Grand Marshal]] of San Francisco's annual Cherry Blossom Festival parade.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Asian Week|title=Cherry Blossom Festival marks 31st year in S.F|first=Judi|last=Parks}}</ref> On January 30, 2011, California first observed an annual "[[Fred Korematsu Day]] of Civil Liberties and the Constitution", the first such ceremony ever to be held in commemoration of an Asian American in the United States.<ref name="ti">{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2045111,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110202062810/http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2045111,00.html|archive-date=February 2, 2011|title=California Marks the First Fred Korematsu Day|last=Liu|first=Ling Woo|date=January 29, 2011|magazine=Time|access-date=January 31, 2011}}</ref> On June 14, 2011, Peruvian President [[Alan García]] apologized for his country's internment of Japanese immigrants during World War II, most of whom were transferred to the U.S.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

=== Social impact and legacy ===
After the war, and once the process of internment came to its conclusion, Japanese Americans became socially affected by the war and their experiences of United States government policy. Japanese Americans rejected their racial identity as a prerequisite to various organizations that had existed prior to their internment, in order to assimilate back into American society, with both the Japanese Association and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce slipping into non-existence in the post-war years.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Hayashi |first=Brian Masaru |title=Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American Internment |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2004 |isbn=9781400837748 |publication-date=2004-07-26 |pages=215–216}}</ref> The distancing of Japanese Americans from any collective, racially labelled establishments was something they saw necessary in order to preserve their status in the United States in the wake of their experiences.<ref name=":2" />

In addition, Japanese Americans were also impacted socially by a changing religious structure in which ethnic churches were terminated, with church membership dropping from 25% of the Japanese American population in 1942, to 6% in 1962.<ref name=":2" />

==Terminology debate==
===Misuse of the term "internment"===
The legal term "internment" has been used in regards to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. This term, however, derives from international conventions regarding the treatment of enemy nationals during wartime and specifically limits internment to those (noncitizen) enemy nationals who threaten the security of the detaining power. The internment of selected enemy alien belligerents, as opposed to mass incarceration, is legal both under US and international law.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Himel |first1=Yoshinori H.T. |title=Americans' Misuse of "Internment" |journal=Seattle Journal for Social Justice |date=2016 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=797–837 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1834&context=sjsj}}</ref> UCLA Asian American studies professor [[Lane Ryo Hirabayashi|Lane Hirabayashi]] pointed out that the history of the term internment, to mean the arrest and holding of non-citizens, could only be correctly applied to Issei, Japanese people who were not legal citizens. These people were a minority during Japanese incarceration and thus Roger Daniels, emeritus professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, has concluded that this terminology is wrongfully used by any government that wishes to include groups other than the Issei.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/debate-over-words-to-describe-japanese-american-incarceration-lingers|title = Debate over words to describe Japanese American incarceration lingers}}</ref>

On April 22, 2022, The [[Associated Press]] edited its entry for ''Japanese internment'',<ref>{{Cite web |title=Associated Press Stylebook |url=https://www.apstylebook.com/users/sign_in |access-date=2022-05-14 |website=www.apstylebook.com}}</ref> changing the entry heading to ''Japanese internment, incarceration,'' and adding the following wording:<ref>{{cite web |date=May 17, 2023 |title=Japanese American internment &#124; Definition, Camps, Locations, Conditions, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Japanese-American-internment}}</ref><blockquote>Though internment has been applied historically to all detainments of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II, the broader use of the term is inaccurate—about two-thirds of those who were relocated US citizens and thus could not be considered interns—and many Japanese-Americans find it objectionable.

It is better to say that they were ''incarcerated'' or ''detained'' and to define the larger event as the ''incarceration of Japanese Americans''. </blockquote>

===Which term to use===
During World War II, the camps were referred to both as relocation centers and concentration camps by government officials and in the press.<ref name=cwric>{{Citation
 | title = Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians: hearing before the Subcommittee on Administrative Law and Governmental Relations of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, second session, on H.R. 5499 
 | publisher = Washington : U.S. G.P.O. | date = June 2, 1980 | pages=171–173}}</ref> Roosevelt himself referred to the camps as concentration camps on different occasions, including at a press conference held on October 20, 1942.<ref name=mcclain>{{Cite book| last = McClain | first = Charles | title = The Mass Internment of Japanese Americans and the Quest for Legal Redress (Asian Americans and the Law: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives) | publisher = Routledge  | year = 1994 | page = 175 | isbn = 978-0-8153-1866-8}}</ref><ref name=cwric/> In 1943, his attorney general [[Francis Biddle]] lamented that "The present practice of keeping loyal American citizens in concentration camps for longer than is necessary is dangerous and repugnant to the principles of our government."<ref name=neiwert195>{{Cite book| last = Neiwert | first = David | title = Strawberry Days | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | year = 2005 | page = 195| isbn = 978-1-4039-6792-3}}</ref>

Following World War II, other government officials made statements suggesting that the use of the term "relocation center" had been largely euphemistic. In 1946, former Secretary of the Interior [[Harold L. Ickes|Harold Ickes]] wrote "We gave the fancy name of 'relocation centers' to these dust bowls, but they were concentration camps nonetheless."<ref name=marrin>{{Cite book| last = Marrin | first = Albert | title = Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During World War II | publisher = Knopf Books | year = 2016 | page = 131| isbn = 978-0-553-50936-6}}</ref> In a 1961 interview, [[Harry S. Truman]] stated "They were
concentration camps. They called it relocation but they put them in concentration camps, and I was against it. We were in a period of emergency, but it was still the wrong thing to do."<ref name=burgan>{{Cite book| last = Burgan | first = Michael | title = Japanese American Internment (Eyewitness to World War II)| publisher =Compass Point Books | year = 2017 | page = 93| isbn = 978-0-7565-5585-6}}</ref>

In subsequent decades, debate has arisen over the terminology used to refer to camps in which [[Japanese Americans|Americans of Japanese ancestry]] and their immigrant parents, were incarcerated by the US government during the war.<ref name = "ManzanarControversy">{{cite web | title = The Manzanar Controversy | url = https://www.pbs.org/weekendexplorer/california/mammoth/manzanar.htm | publisher = Public Broadcasting System | access-date = July 18, 2007 }}</ref><ref name="DanielsTerminology">{{cite journal | last = Daniels | first = Roger | title = Incarceration of the Japanese Americans: A Sixty-Year Perspective | journal = The History Teacher | volume = 35 | issue = 3 | pages = 4–6 | date = May 2002 | url = http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.3/daniels.html | access-date = July 18, 2007 | doi = 10.2307/3054440 | jstor = 3054440 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20021229161025/http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.3/daniels.html | archive-date = December 29, 2002 | df = mdy-all }}</ref><ref name = "Ito-MotherJones">{{cite magazine | last = Ito | first = Robert | title = Concentration Camp Or Summer Camp? | magazine = Mother Jones | date = September 15, 1998 | url = http://motherjones.com/politics/1998/09/concentration-camp-or-summer-camp | access-date = November 18, 2010}}</ref> These camps have been referred to as "war relocation centers", "relocation camps", "relocation centers", "[[internment camp]]s", and "[[concentration camp]]s", and the controversy over which term is the most accurate and appropriate continues.<ref name = "Aiko-Words"/><ref name="DenshoTerminology">{{cite web|title=Densho: Terminology & Glossary: A Note On Terminology |publisher=Densho |url=http://www.densho.org/default.asp?path=/assets/sharedpages/glossary.asp?section=home |year=1997 |access-date=July 15, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070624065352/http://www.densho.org/default.asp?path=%2Fassets%2Fsharedpages%2Fglossary.asp%3Fsection%3Dhome |archive-date=June 24, 2007 |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="Reflectionsiii–iv">{{cite book|title=Reflections: Three Self-Guided Tours Of Manzanar|url=https://archive.org/details/reflectionsinthr00unse|url-access=registration|publisher=Manzanar Committee|year=1998|pages=iii–iv}}</ref><ref name="CLPEF">{{cite web|url=http://www.momomedia.com/CLPEF/backgrnd.html#Link%20to%20terminology|title=CLPEF Resolution Regarding Terminology|year=1996|publisher=Civil Liberties Public Education Fund|access-date=July 20, 2007}}</ref><ref name="SKE-ManzanarCommittee">{{cite web|url=https://manzanarcommittee.org/2010/10/21/sue-kunitomi-embrey-concentration-camps-not-relocations-centers|title=Sue Kunitomi Embrey: Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers|last=Embrey|first=Bruce|date=October 21, 2010|publisher=Manzanar Committee|access-date=May 11, 2017}}</ref>

===Towards a consensus===
In 1998, the use of the term "concentration camps" gained greater credibility prior to the opening of an exhibit about the American camps at [[Ellis Island]]. Initially, the [[American Jewish Committee]] (AJC) and the [[National Park Service]], which manages Ellis Island, objected to the use of the term in the exhibit.<ref name="NYTimes-Debate2">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/08/nyregion/what-is-a-concentration-camp-ellis-island-exhibit-prompts-a-debate.html|title=What Is a Concentration Camp? Ellis Island Exhibit Prompts a Debate|last=Sengupta|first=Somini|date=March 8, 1998|access-date=July 11, 2011|newspaper=New York Times}}</ref> However, during a subsequent meeting held at the offices of the AJC in New York City, leaders representing Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans reached an understanding about the use of the term.<ref name="McCarthy-Human Quest2">{{cite journal|last=McCarthy|first=Sheryl|date=July–August 1999|title=Suffering Isn't One Group's Exclusive Privilege|journal=HumanQuest}}</ref>

After the meeting, the [[Japanese American National Museum]] and the AJC issued a joint statement (which was included in the exhibit) that read in part:{{blockquote|A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are. Although many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history, the term 'concentration camp' was first used at the turn of the [20th] century in the Spanish American [[Second Boer War concentration camps|and Boer Wars]]. During World War II, America's concentration camps were clearly distinguishable from [[Nazi concentration camps|Nazi Germany's]]. Nazi camps were places of torture, [[Nazi human experimentation|barbarous medical experiments]] and [[summary execution]]s; some were [[Extermination camp|extermination centers]] with [[gas chamber]]s. [[The Holocaust|Six million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust]]. Many others, including [[Romani genocide|Gypsies]], [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|Poles]], [[Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany|homosexuals]] and political dissidents were also victims of the Nazi concentration camps. In recent years, concentration camps have existed in the [[Gulag|former Soviet Union]], [[Cambodian genocide|Cambodia]] and [[Bosnian genocide|Bosnia]]. Despite differences, all had one thing in common: the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.<ref name="JANM-AJC">{{cite press release | title = American Jewish Committee, Japanese American National Museum Issue Joint Statement About Ellis Island Exhibit Set To Open April 3 | publisher = Japanese American National Museum and American Jewish Committee | url = http://www.janm.org/press/release/52 | date = March 13, 1998 | access-date = December 30, 2007}}</ref><ref name="NYTAccord">{{cite news | last = Sengupta | first = Somini | title = Accord On Term "Concentration Camp" | newspaper = New York Times | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/nyregion/accord-on-term-concentration-camp.html | date = March 10, 1998 | access-date = June 13, 2010}}</ref>}}''[[The New York Times]]'' published an unsigned editorial supporting the use of "concentration camp" in the exhibit.<ref name="NYTOp-Ed2">{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06EEDF1230F933A25750C0A96E958260|title=Words for Suffering|date=March 10, 1998|access-date=December 31, 2007|newspaper=New York Times}}</ref> An article quoted Jonathan Mark, a columnist for ''[[The Jewish Week]]'', who wrote, "Can no one else speak of slavery, gas, trains, camps? It's Jewish malpractice to monopolize pain and minimize victims."<ref name="Defending-Lexicon2">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/nyregion/nyc-defending-jews-lexicon-of-anguish.html|title=NYC; Defending Jews' Lexicon Of Anguish|last=Haberman|first=Clyde|date=March 13, 1998|access-date=July 11, 2011|newspaper=New York Times}}</ref> AJC Executive Director David A. Harris stated during the controversy, "We have not claimed Jewish exclusivity for the term 'concentration camps.'",<ref name="HarrisLetter2">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/opinion/l-exhibition-on-camps-998206.html|title=Exhibition on Camps|last=Harris|first=David A|date=March 13, 1998|access-date=July 11, 2011|newspaper=New York Times}}</ref> while also stating "Since the Second World War, these terms have taken on a specificity and a new level of meaning that deserves protection. A certain care needs to be exercised."<ref name="ContinuedDebate">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/20/concentration-camps-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-japanese-americans/|title=For Japanese Americans, the debate over what counts as a 'concentration camp' is familiar|last=Flynn|first=Meagan|date=June 20, 2019|access-date=April 4, 2020|newspaper=Washington Post}}</ref>

Deborah Schiffrin has written that, at the opening of the exhibition, entitled "America's Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese-American Experience", "some Jewish groups" had been offended by the use of the term. However, Schiffrin also notes that a compromise was reached when an appropriate footnote was added to the exhibit brochure.<ref>{{Cite journal|jstor = 42888381|title = Language and public memorial: 'America's concentration camps'|last1 = Schiffrin|first1 = Deborah|journal = Discourse & Society|year = 2001|volume = 12|issue = 4|pages = 505–534|doi = 10.1177/0957926501012004005|s2cid = 144215421}}</ref>

===On the rejection of euphemisms===
On July 7, 2012, at its annual convention, the National Council of the [[Japanese American Citizens League]] unanimously ratified the ''Power of Words Handbook,'' calling for the use of "...truthful and accurate terms, and retiring the misleading euphemisms created by the government to cover up the denial of Constitutional and human rights, the force, oppressive conditions, and racism against 120,000 innocent people of Japanese ancestry locked up in America's World War II concentration camps."<ref name="PowerOfWords">{{cite news|url=https://manzanarcommittee.org/2012/07/15/jacl-ratifies-power-of-words-handbook-what-are-the-next-steps|title=JACL Ratifies Power Of Words Handbook: What Are The Next Steps?|last=Noguchi|first=Andy|date=July 16, 2012|access-date=May 20, 2017|publisher=Japanese American Citizens League via the Manzanar Committee}}</ref>  Moreover, Roosevelt himself publicly used the term "concentration camps" without any qualifiers to describe Japanese American incarceration in a press conference in November 1944.<ref>Beito, p. 198.</ref>

==Comparisons==
{{Main|World War II evacuation and expulsion|Population transfers in the Soviet Union}}

The incarceration of Japanese Americans has been compared the [[Deportation of the Volga Germans|internal deportation of Ethnically Volga German]] Soviet citizens from the western USSR to [[Soviet Central Asia]]. As well as the persecutions, [[Deportation|expulsions]], and dislocations of other ethnic minority groups which also occurred during [[World War II]], both in [[European theatre of World War II|Europe]] and [[Pacific War|Asia]].<ref name="ms">Maxim Shrayer (2007). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=TSXYMF3RNEYC&pg=PA30 Waiting for America: a story of emigration]''". Syracuse University Press. p. 30. {{ISBN|0-8156-0893-4}}</ref><ref name="mr">Michael Rywkin (1994). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dufZDXtYaV4C&pg=PA66 Moscow's lost empire]''". M.E. Sharpe. p. 66. {{ISBN|1-56324-237-0}}.</ref><ref name="mkr">Mohit Kumar Ray, Rama Kundu, Pradip Kumar Dey (2005). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=wIC9cdVrAnwC&pg=PA150 Widening horizons: essays in honour of Professor Mohit K. Ray]''". Sarup & Sons. p. 150. {{ISBN|81-7625-598-X}}</ref><ref name="mm">Michael Mann (2005). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cGHGPgj1_tIC&pg=PA328 The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing]''". Cambridge University Press. p. 328. {{ISBN|0-521-53854-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/collections/exhibits/harmony/canada|title = Japanese Canadian Internment — UW Libraries}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.norkarussia.info/deportation-1941.html|title = Deportation 1941}}</ref><ref name="CLA1988-Yamato">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Civil Liberties Act of 1988 |encyclopedia=[[Densho Encyclopedia]] |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988/ |access-date=March 11, 2014 |last=Yamato |first=Sharon}}</ref><ref name="democracynow">{{cite web |title=Wwii Reparations: Japanese-American Internees |url=http://www.democracynow.org/1999/2/18/wwii_reparations_japanese_american_internees |access-date=January 24, 2010 |publisher=Democracy Now!}}</ref><ref name="CongressReport">100th Congress, S. 1009, [http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00055&search_id=19269&pagenum=2 reproduced at] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120920090638/http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00055&search_id=19269&pagenum=2|date=September 20, 2012}}, internmentarchives.com. Retrieved September 19, 2006.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Public Opinion Poll on Japanese Internment - Americans and the Holocaust |url=https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/main/us-public-opinion-on-japanese-internment-1942 |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=United States Holocaust Museum |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Fiset" /><ref name="javadc.org" /><ref name="The Battle of Parkville" />{{excessive citations inline|date=December 2024}}

==Notable individuals who were incarcerated==
{{Main category|Japanese-American internees}}
{{See also|Estelle Peck Ishigo|Isamu Shibayama|Ralph Lazo}}
*[[George Takei]], an American actor who played Sulu in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'', was incarcerated at Rohwer and Tule Lake concentration camps between the ages of five and eight.<ref>{{cite web|last=Anderson|first=Stuart|date=December 4, 2019|access-date=May 30, 2021|title=George Takei's Family's Japanese American Internment Nightmare|work=[[Forbes]]|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/12/04/george-takeis-familys-japanese-american-internment-nightmare/}}</ref> He reflected on these experiences in the 2019 series ''[[The Terror (TV series)|The Terror: Infamy]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Li Coomes|first=Nina|title=The Uneven Historical Horror of The Terror: Infamy|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/09/terror-infamy-amc-historical-horror/597175/|work=[[The Atlantic]]|date=September 2, 2019|access-date=May 30, 2021}}</ref> Takei has also recounted his time in a concentration camp in the graphic novel ''They Called Us Enemy''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lehoczky |first=Etelka |title=George Takei Recalls Time In An American Internment Camp In 'They Called Us Enemy' |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742558996/george-takei-recalls-time-in-an-american-internment-camp-in-they-called-us-enemy |website=NPR|date=17 July 2019 }}</ref>
*[[Pat Morita]], the American actor who played the role of Mr. Miyagi in ''The Karate Kid''. He and his family were incarcerated at Gila River.
*[[Isamu Noguchi]], a Japanese American sculptor, decided to voluntarily relocate to Poston, Arizona from New York but eventually asked to be released because of the conditions and alienation from the Japanese American community in camp.
*[[Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga]], a ''nisei'' high school senior incarcerated in Manzanar, California who became a political activist for various causes, including [[Japanese American redress and court cases|Japanese American redress]]
*[[Norman Mineta|Norman Y. Mineta]] was a U.S. Representative from San Jose, Secretary of Commerce under Clinton, and Secretary of Transportation under President [[George W. Bush]]
*[[Ruth Asawa]], artist and namesake of the [[Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts]]. She was incarcerated with her family at the Rowher camp in Arkansas.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nps.gov/people/ruth-asawa.htm | title=Ruth Asawa (U.S. National Park Service) }}</ref>

==Legacy==

===Cultural legacy===

====Exhibitions and collections====
[[File:Japanese American Memorial (Eugene, Oregon).jpg|thumb|Japanese American Memorial (Eugene, Oregon)]]
[[File:Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial 19.jpg|thumb|The cedar "story wall" at the [[Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial]]]]
[[File:Rohwer War Relocation Center 010.jpg|thumb|Rohwer Memorial Cemetery, declared a [[National Historic Landmark]] in 1992]]
[[File:Rohwer War Relocation Center 006.jpg|thumb|upright|Monument to the men of the [[100th Infantry Battalion]]/[[442nd Infantry Regiment|442nd Regimental Combat Team]], Rohwer Memorial Cemetery]]
[[File:Go For Broke.jpg|thumb|Painting by [[Don Troiani]] depicting soldiers of the [[442nd Regimental Combat Team]] fighting in the [[Vosges]]|alt=In foreground group of Japanese-American soldiers climb over a ridge and begin to fire upon a German tank in the background which is accompanied by a German half-track in a wooded area.]]
[[File:442nd RCT citation presentation in Bruyères 1944-11-12.jpg|thumb|Two color guards and color bearers of the Japanese American 442nd Combat Team stand at attention while their citations are read. They are standing on the ground of Bruyeres, France, where many of [[Lost Battalion (Europe, World War II)|their comrades fell]].]]
[[File:Dalton wells ccc camp in grand county utah.jpg|thumb|Remains of Dalton Wells, a [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Grand County, Utah|National Register of Historic Places listing in Utah]]]]
* In 1987, the [[Smithsonian Institution]]'s [[National Museum of American History]] opened an exhibition called "A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution". The exhibition examined the Constitutional process by considering the experiences of Americans of Japanese ancestry before, during, and after World War II. On view were more than 1,000 artifacts and photographs relating to the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II. The exhibition closed on January 11, 2004. On November 8, 2011, the Museum launched an online exhibition of the same name with shared archival content.<ref name="Smithsonian Online">{{cite web|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/index.html |title=A More Perfect Union Online Exhibition |publisher=National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution |access-date=April 24, 2012}}</ref><ref name="Smithsonian">{{cite web|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/collection/index.html |title=A More Perfect Union Collection Search |website=americanhistory.si.edu|publisher=National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution |access-date=April 24, 2012}}</ref>
* In September 2022, the [[Japanese American National Museum]] in Los Angeles created a project in which each person with Japanese ancestry who was incarcerated in an internment camp (over 125,000 names)<ref name="guardian-2022-10-11" /><ref name="howmany" /> is displayed in a printed book of names, called the Ireichō, a website known as the Ireizō (ireizo.com), and a light sculpture called Ireihi.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.janm.org/exhibits/ireicho |title=Ireichō: About this Exhibition |work=[[Japanese American National Museum]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://rafu.com/2022/10/75-wwii-camps-listed-on-ireicho/ |title=75 WWII Camps Listed on Ireichō |date=October 1, 2022 |newspaper=[[Rafu Shimpo]]}}</ref><ref name="guardian-2022-10-11">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/11/japanese-americans-incarceration-second-world-war |title='Proof I was there': every Japanese American incarcerated in second world war finally named |first=Taylor |last=Weik |date=October 11, 2022 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>
* Following recognition of the injustices done to Japanese Americans, in 1992 [[Manzanar Japanese internment camp|Manzanar camp]] was designated a [[National Historic Sites (United States)|National Historic Site]] to "provide for the protection and interpretation of historic, cultural, and natural resources associated with the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II" (Public Law 102-248). In 2001, the site of the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho was designated the [[Minidoka National Historic Site]]. [[Honouliuli National Historic Site]] and [[Amache National Historic Site]] have also been added to the [[National Park Service|National Park System]].
* [[Poston Elementary School, Unit 1, Colorado River Relocation Center|The elementary school]] at Poston Camp Unit 1, the only surviving school complex at one of the camps and the only major surviving element of the Poston camp, was designated a [[National Historic Landmark District]] in 2012.<ref name=nhl>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/nhl/news/LC/fall2011/Poston.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102022025/http://www.nps.gov/nhl/news/LC/fall2011/Poston.pdf |archive-date=January 2, 2016 |title=NHL nomination for Poston Elementary School, Unit 1, Colorado River Relocation Center|publisher=National Park Service|access-date=December 7, 2015}}</ref>
* On April 16, 2013, the [[Japanese American Internment Museum]] was opened in [[McGehee, Arkansas]] regarding the history of two concentration camps.
* In January 2015, the [[Topaz War Relocation Center#Remembrance|Topaz Museum]] opened in [[Delta, Utah]].<ref name=topazMuseumMilestones>{{cite web| title=Significant Milestones of the Topaz Museum| url=http://www.topazmuseum.org/milestones| access-date=July 11, 2016| archive-date=July 12, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160712121851/http://topazmuseum.org/milestones}}</ref> Its stated mission is "to preserve the Topaz site and the history of the internment experience during World War II; to interpret its impact on the internees, their families, and the citizens of Millard County; and to educate the public in order to prevent a recurrence of a similar denial of American civil rights".<ref name=topazMuseumMission>{{cite web| title=Topaz Museum Mission Statement| url=http://www.topazmuseum.org/mission| access-date=July 11, 2016| archive-date=June 16, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616071219/http://www.topazmuseum.org/mission}}</ref>
* On June 29, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois, the Alphawood Gallery, in partnership with the Japanese American Service Committee, opened "Then They Came for Me", the largest exhibition on Japanese American incarceration and postwar resettlement ever to open in the Midwest. This exhibit was scheduled to run until November 19, 2017.<ref name="Alphawood_Gallery">{{cite web|url=http://www.alphawoodgallery.org |title=Then They Came For Me |publisher=Alphawood Gallery |access-date=July 7, 2017}}</ref>

=====Sculpture=====
{{Main|Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II}}
[[Nina Akamu]], a [[Sansei]], created the sculpture entitled ''Golden Cranes'' of two [[red-crowned crane]]s, which became the center feature of the [[Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II]]. The U.S. Department of Defense described the November 9, 2000, dedication of the Memorial: "Drizzling rain was mixed with tears streaming down the faces of Japanese American World War II heroes and those who spent the war years imprisoned in isolated internment camps." Akamu's family's connection to the concentration camps based on the experience of her maternal grandfather, who was interned and later died in a concentration camp in Hawaii—combined with the fact that she grew up in Hawaii for a time, where she fished with her father at Pearl Harbor—and the erection of a Japanese American war memorial near her home in [[Massa, Tuscany|Massa]], Italy, inspired a strong connection to the Memorial and its creation.

[[United States Attorney General]] [[Janet Reno]] also spoke at the dedication of the Memorial, where she shared a letter from [[Bill Clinton|President Clinton]] stating: "We are diminished when any American is targeted unfairly because of his or her heritage. This Memorial and the internment sites are powerful reminders that stereotyping, discrimination, hatred and racism have no place in this country."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45581 |title=National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism Dedicated |first=Rudi |last=Williams |work=[[American Forces Press Service]] |via=defense.gov |access-date=June 25, 2019 |date=November 15, 2000 |archive-date=September 30, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930021524/http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45581 }}</ref>

According to the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, the memorial:

<blockquote>...is symbolic not only of the Japanese American experience, but of the extrication of anyone from deeply painful and restrictive circumstances. It reminds us of the battles we've fought to overcome our ignorance and prejudice and the meaning of an integrated culture, once pained and torn, now healed and unified. Finally, the monument presents the Japanese American experience as a symbol for all peoples.<ref name="NJAM">{{cite web |url=https://www.njamemorial.org/memorial-symbolism |title=Symbolism in the Memorial |work=[[Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II]] |access-date=June 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412010331/https://www.njamemorial.org/memorial-symbolism |archive-date=April 12, 2019 }}</ref></blockquote>

====Films====
{{Main category|Films about the internment of Japanese Americans}}
{{Main list|List of films about the Japanese American internment
}}

Dozens of movies were filmed about and in the concentration camps; these relate the experiences of inmates or were made by former camp inmates. Examples follow.
* The film ''[[Bad Day at Black Rock]]'' (1955) is about the wartime bias against Japanese Americans.<ref name=TNYT-1953-08-07>{{citation|title=Metro to Stress Big-Budget Films|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=August 7, 1953 }}</ref>
* In ''[[The Karate Kid]]'' (1984), [[Ralph Macchio]]'s character, [[Daniel LaRusso|Daniel]], discovers a box containing references to the deaths of [[Mr. Miyagi]]'s wife and child in the [[Manzanar]] camp, and to Mr. Miyagi ([[Pat Morita]]'s character) being awarded the [[Medal of Honor]] while serving with the [[442nd Infantry Regiment]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087538/|title=The Karate Kid|date=June 22, 1984|via=www.imdb.com}}</ref>
* The movie ''[[Come See The Paradise]]'' (1990), written and directed by [[Alan Parker]], tells the story of a European American man who elopes with a Japanese American woman and their subsequent incarceration following the outbreak of war.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099291/|title=Come See the Paradise|date=January 1, 1991|via=www.imdb.com}}</ref>
* The documentary ''[[Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo|Days of Waiting]]'' (1990), by [[Steven Okazaki]], is about a white artist, [[Estelle Ishigo]], who voluntarily joined her Japanese American husband at a concentration camp. Inspired by Ishigo's book ''Lone Heart Mountain'', it won an [[Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject)|Academy Award for Best Documentary]]<ref name="NY Times">{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/300549/Days-of-Waiting/details |title=NY Times: Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo |access-date=2008-12-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016201615/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/300549/Days-of-Waiting/details |archive-date=2012-10-16 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2012 }}</ref><ref name="Oscars1991">{{cite web|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1991 |title=The 63rd Academy Awards (1991) Nominees and Winners |access-date=May 19, 2019 |work=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |date=October 4, 2014 |publisher=AMPAS |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020005240/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1991 |archive-date=October 20, 2014 }}</ref> and a [[Peabody Award]].
* The film ''[http://www.ttakemoto.com/lookingforjiro/index.html Looking for Jiro] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170401002658/http://www.ttakemoto.com/lookingforjiro/index.html |date=April 1, 2017 }}'' (2011), by visual studies scholar and performance artist [[Tina Takemoto]], explores queerness and homosexual desire in concentration camps, focusing on [[Jiro Onuma]], a gay bachelor from San Francisco incarcerated at the Topaz War Relocation Center.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Takemoto|first=Tina|year=2014|title=Looking for Jiro Onuma: A Queer Meditation on the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II|journal=GLQ|volume=20|issue=3|pages=241–75|doi=10.1215/10642684-2422665|s2cid=145132740}}</ref>
* Greg Chaney's documentary film ''The Empty Chair'' (2014) recounts the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from [[Juneau, Alaska]] and how the community stood in quiet defiance against such policies.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3996494/|title=The Empty Chair|date=2014|via=www.imdb.com}}</ref>
* The documentary ''[[The Legacy of Heart Mountain]]'' (2014) explores the experience of life at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in [[Cody, Wyoming]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heartmountainfilm.com/|title=Heart Mountain Documentary Film – The Legacy of Heart Mountain|website=www.heartmountainfilm.com|access-date=July 21, 2022|archive-date=April 19, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220419221831/http://www.heartmountainfilm.com/}}</ref>
* The documentary film ''[[To Be Takei]]'' (2014) chronicles the early life of actor [[George Takei]], who spent several years in a concentration camp.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.georgetakei.com/bio.php|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150825212126/http://www.georgetakei.com/bio.php|title=George Takei|date=August 25, 2015|archive-date=August 25, 2015}}</ref><ref>"[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/be-takei-sundance-review-672128 To Be Takei: Sundance Review]"</ref>
* The feature film ''[[Under the Blood Red Sun#Film adaptation|Under the Blood Red Sun]]'' (2014), by Japanese American director Tim Savage and based on [[Graham Salisbury]]'s [[Under the Blood Red Sun|novel of the same name]], examines the life of a 13-year-old Japanese American boy living in Hawaii whose father is interned after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://underthebloodredsun.com|title=HOME|website=underthebloodredsun.com}}</ref><ref>"[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278950/ Under the Blood Red Sun: IMDB]"</ref>

====Literature====
{{Main category|Books about the internment of Japanese Americans}}
Many books and novels were written by and about Japanese Americans' experience during and after their residence in concentration camps among them can be mentioned the followed:
* [[Isabel Allende]]'s novel ''The Japanese Lover'' (2017) presents the lifelong love affair between two immigrants, one of whom is Japanese American and who is sent along with his whole family to an concentration camp.<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/isabel-allende-the-japanese-fiction-comes-from-the-womb-not-the-brain-book-review-a6733596.html|title = Isabel Allende, The Japanese Lover: 'Fiction comes from the womb, not the brain' – book review|last = Walker|first = Tim|date = 15 November 2015|work = The Independent|access-date = 16 January 2016}}</ref>
* [[Jamie Ford]]'s novel ''[[Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet]]'' (2009) tells of a Chinese man's search for an Oscar Holden jazz record bought in his childhood with a Japanese friend in Seattle and left behind during World War II, when she and her family were sent to a Japanese American concentration camp.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/hoteloncornerofb00jami|title=Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel|first=Jamie|last=Ford|date=January 27, 2009|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-345-51250-5}}</ref>
* [[David Guterson]]'s novel ''[[Snow Falling on Cedars]]'' (1994) and its [[Snow Falling on Cedars (film)|1999 film adaptation]] refer to the incarceration of the Imada family in Manzanar.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679764021&view=tg|title=Random House for High School Teachers – Catalog – Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson|website=www.randomhouse.com|access-date=October 27, 2015|archive-date=January 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102022025/http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679764021&view=tg}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120834/|title=Snow Falling on Cedars|date=January 7, 2000|via=www.imdb.com}}</ref>
* [[Cynthia Kadohata]]'s historical novel ''[[Weedflower]]'' (2006) is told from the perspective of the twelve-year-old Japanese American protagonist, and received many awards and recognition.<ref>{{cite book|title=Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata|date=January 27, 2009|url=http://books.simonandschuster.com/Weedflower/Cynthia-Kadohata/9781416975663|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-1-4169-7566-3|access-date=17 December 2014}}</ref>
* [[Florence Crannell Means]]' novel ''[[The Moved-Outers]]'' (1945) centers on a high school senior and her family's treatment during the incarceration of Japanese Americans. It was a [[Newbery Medal|Newbery Honor]] recipient in 1946.<ref>{{cite web
  | title = Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present
  | publisher = [[American Library Association]]
  | url = http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal.cfm
  | access-date = 2009-12-30
  | archive-date = February 11, 2011
  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110211140111/http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal.cfm
  }}</ref>
* [[John Okada]]'s novel ''[[No-No Boy]]'' (1956) features a protagonist from Seattle, who was incarcerated with his family and imprisoned for answering "no" to the last two questions on the loyalty questionnaire. It explores the postwar environment in the Pacific Northwest.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/OKANO2.html|title=University of Washington Press – Books – No-No Boy|website=www.washington.edu}}</ref>
* [[Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston]] and [[James D. Houston]]'s book ''[[Farewell to Manzanar]]'' (1973) about Jeanne's experiences in the Manzanar  War Relocation Center and her life after. It explores her experience as a child in the camp.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Farewell to Manzanar |url=https://www.facinghistory.org/books-borrowing/farewell-manzanar |access-date=2022-07-06 |website=Facing History and Ourselves|date=May 12, 2020 }}</ref>
* [[Julie Otsuka]]'s novel ''[[The Buddha in the Attic]]'' (2011), winner of the [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction]], tells the story of Japanese female immigrants in California, and ends on the story of the concentration camps and the reaction of neighbors left behind.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.julieotsuka.com|title=Julie Otsuka :: author of The Buddha In The Attic and When The Emperor Was Divine|website=www.julieotsuka.com|language=en-US|access-date=2017-03-29}}</ref>
* Julie Otsuka's novel ''[[When the Emperor was Divine]]'' (2002) tells the story of an unnamed Japanese American family incarcerated at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah. The novel is based on Otsuka's own family's experiences.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.julieotsuka.com/when-the-emperor-was-divine/|title=When the Emperor Was Divine|website=www.julieotsuka.com|access-date=October 27, 2015|archive-date=November 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151107174844/http://www.julieotsuka.com/when-the-emperor-was-divine/}}</ref>
* [[Kermit Roosevelt III]]'s historical novel [https://kermitroosevelt.net/ ''Allegiance''] (2015) takes readers inside the US government and Supreme Court to examine the legal and moral debates and the little-known facts surrounding the detention of Japanese Americans. A Harper Lee Prize finalist, the novel is based on a true story.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://kermitroosevelt.net/|title=Kermit Roosevelt Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School & Award-Winning Author Read, watch & learn about today's politics, the US Supreme Court, law and justice, ethics and American ideals, and gain a better understanding of the historical context. Peruse the bookshelf for works of fiction and nonfiction.|website=Kermit Roosevelt}}</ref>
* Vivienne Schiffer's novel ''Camp Nine'' (2013) is set in and near the Rohwer Japanese American concentration camp in Arkansas.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-Camp-Nine-by-Vivienne-Schiffer-4030239.php|title=Book Review: Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer|date=November 12, 2012}}</ref>
* [[Toyoko Yamasaki]] wrote about the conflicting allegiances of Japanese Americans during the war in ''Futatsu no Sokoku'' (1983). [[University of Hawaiʻi Press]] published an English language translation by V. Dixon Morris under the title ''Two Homelands'' in 2007.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Two_Homelands_(book)/|title=Two Homelands (book)|access-date=2020-03-11|website=Densho|last=Niiya|first=Brian}}</ref> It was dramatized into a limited series of the same name by [[TV Tokyo]] in 2019.<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web|url=https://www.rafu.com/2019/07/divided-allegiance|title=Two Homelands|date=2019-07-21|access-date=2020-03-12|website=Rafu Shimpo}}</ref>
* George Takei published a graphic novel titled ''[[They Called Us Enemy]]'' (2019) about his time in concentration camps, the plight of Japanese Americans during the war, and the social & legal ramifications following the closure of the camps. It was co-written by [http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/justin-eisinger Justin Eisinger] and [http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/steven-scott Steven Scott] and illustrated by [[Harmony Becker]]. The book was awarded the [https://www.apalaweb.org/awards/literature-awards/ Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APLA)-Literature], [[Eisner Award]],<ref>{{cite web|title=They Called Us Enemy: Expanded Edition by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Harmony Becker: 9781603094702 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/605187/they-called-us-enemy-expanded-edition-by-george-takei-justin-eisinger-steven-scott-harmony-becker/|access-date=2020-07-29|website=PenguinRandomhouse.com|language=en-US}}</ref> and [[American Book Awards|American Book Award]] in 2020.<ref name=associatedpress>{{citation  |title=George Takei, Ocean Vuong win American Book Awards| newspaper=[[Associated Press]] |date=September 14, 2020 |url=https://apnews.com/8c4cb4c7193622a84620f65a158cdf3b}}</ref>

====Music====
* [[Fort Minor]]'s "[[Kenji (song)|Kenji]]" (2005) tells the story of [[Mike Shinoda]]'s grandfather and his experience in the camps.
* [[Jake Shimabukuro]]'s solo album ''[[Peace Love Ukulele]]'' (2011) includes the song "Go For Broke" inspired by the World War II all-Japanese American 442nd US Army unit.<ref>{{cite news|url= http://showandtellhawaii.staradvertiserblogs.com/tag/ukulele/page/3/|title= It's Time to Applaud Luke virtuoso Shimabukuro, review of Peace Love Ukulele|author= Harada, Wayne|date= January 12, 2011|work= Honolulu Star Advertiser|access-date= 12 October 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151016074000/http://showandtellhawaii.staradvertiserblogs.com/tag/ukulele/page/3/|archive-date= October 16, 2015}}</ref>
* [[Kishi Bashi]]'s 2019 album ''Omoiyari'' uses the incarceration program as its central theme.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2019/05/23/724983774/first-listen-kishi-bashi-omoiyari?t=1582632027406|title=Kishi Bashi's 'Omoiyari' Fosters Compassion|website=[[NPR]]|date=May 23, 2019|last1=Thompson|first1=Stephen}}</ref>
* [[Mia Doi Todd]]'s 2020 song ''Take What You Can Carry (Scientist Dub One)'' is about the camp's impact on her mother and grandmother.<ref>[https://miadoitodd.bandcamp.com/track/take-what-you-can-carry-scientist-dub-one Take What You Can Carry (Scientist Dub One)] Mia Doi Todd's [[Bandcamp]] page</ref><ref>[https://www.npr.org/2020/11/12/933813575/play-it-forward-the-multiplicity-of-mia-doi-todd Play It Forward: The Multiplicity Of Mia Doi Todd] November 12, 2020 [[NPR]].</ref> It was released on February 20, 2020, when California lawmakers passed a resolution to formally apologize to Japanese Americans for the Legislature's role in their incarceration.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2020/02/20/807428171/california-lawmakers-expected-to-apologize-for-u-s-internment-of-japanese-americ California Lawmakers Apologize For U.S. Internment Of Japanese Americans.] February 20, 2020 [[NPR]]</ref><ref>[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200HR77 HR-77 Relative to World War II Japanese American concentration camps.] Revised February 20, 2020. California Legislative Information.</ref>

====Spoken word====
* [[George Carlin]], during his monologues on individual rights and criticism towards the American government, spoke about the relocation of Japanese American citizens to the designated camps.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/george-carlin-politics-honor-death-8-years-article-1.2683890 |title=SEE IT: George Carlin's mind-blowing takes on American politics in honor of the comedian's death eight years ago |first=Brian |last=Lisi |work=[[New York Daily News]] |date=June 22, 2016 |access-date=June 25, 2019 }}</ref>

====Psychological and Intergenerational Impacts====
* The emotional and psychological toll of internment has been well-documented in personal narratives and oral histories. Survivors recount feelings of shame, loss of identity, and [[intergenerational trauma]]. The documentary ''Children of the Camps''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ina |first=Satsuki |title=Children of the Camps: The Documentary |website=[[PBS]] |url=https://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/index.html}}</ref> reveals that many internees carried the burden of these experiences well into adulthood, affecting family dynamics and cultural expression.

====Television====
* ''[[Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series)|Hawaii Five-0]]'' [[Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series, season 4)#ep81|Episode 81, "Honor Thy Father"]] (December 2013), is dedicated to solving a cold case murder at the Honouliuli Internment Camp, some 70 years earlier.<ref name="Rafu0Hawaii5-0">{{cite web| last = Yamamoto | first = J.K. | title = Five-0 Flashes Back to WWII | url = http://www.rafu.com/2013/12/five-0-flashes-back-to-wwii | website=rafu.com|publisher = Rafu Shimpo | date = December 11, 2013 | access-date = March 15, 2015}}</ref>
* Much of ''[[The Terror: Infamy]]'' (2019) takes place at a fictional WRA camp in Oregon.<ref>{{cite news|work=EW|access-date=August 27, 2019|title=AMC's horror series ''The Terror: Infamy'' reminds us of the horrors of internment camps| author=Franich, Darren |date=July 19, 2019| url= https://ew.com/tv-reviews/2019/07/19/amc-the-terror-infamy-season-2-review/}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2019-08-09/japanese-internment-the-terror-infamy-amc|title=For Japanese Americans, 'The Terror' is personal|author=Yamato, Jen (Staff)|date= August 9, 2019}}</ref>
* [[Toyoko Yamasaki]]'s Japanese language novel, ''Futatsu no Sokoku'', addressesing the conflicting allegiances of Japanese Americans in the camps, was dramatized into a limited series of the same name by [[TV Tokyo]] in 2019.<ref name="autogenerated2"/>

====Theater====
* The musical ''[[Allegiance (musical)|Allegiance]]'' (2013), which premiered in San Diego, California, was inspired by the camp experiences of its star, [[George Takei]].<ref name="Allegiance Musical">{{cite web|title=Allegiance |url=http://www.allegiancemusical.com/about |work=Allegiance Musical |access-date=February 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221133711/http://www.allegiancemusical.com/about |archive-date=February 21, 2015 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

===Legal legacy===
[[File:Face detail, Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry at . . . - NARA - 537994 (cropped).jpg|alt=|thumb|upright|Grandfather and grandson at Manzanar, July 2, 1942]]
[[File:Gordon Hirabayashi's Presidential Medal of Freedom and certificate.jpg|thumb|upright|Gordon Hirabayashi's Medal of Freedom and certificate]]

Several significant legal decisions arose out of Japanese American incarceration, relating to the powers of the government to detain citizens in wartime. Among the cases which reached the US Supreme Court were ''[[Ozawa v. United States]]'' (1922), ''[[Yasui v. United States]]'' (1943), ''[[Hirabayashi v. United States]]'' (1943), ''[[ex parte Endo]]'' (1944), and ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]'' (1944). In ''Ozawa'', the court established that peoples defined as 'white' were specifically of Caucasian descent; In ''Yasui'' and ''Hirabayashi,'' the court upheld the constitutionality of curfews based on Japanese ancestry; in ''Korematsu,'' the court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion order. In ''Endo'', the court accepted a petition for a [[writ of habeas corpus]] and ruled that the WRA had no authority to subject a loyal citizen to its procedures.

Korematsu's and Hirabayashi's convictions were vacated in a series of ''[[coram nobis]]'' cases in the early 1980s.<ref name="Irons">{{cite book | author=Irons, Peter. | title=Justice At War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases | publisher=University of Washington Press | orig-date=1976 | year=1996 | isbn=0-520-08312-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/justiceatwarthes00iron }}</ref> In the ''coram nobis'' cases, federal district and appellate courts ruled that newly uncovered evidence revealed an unfairness which, had it been known at the time, would likely have changed the Supreme Court's decisions in the Yasui, Hirabayashi, and Korematsu cases.<ref name="korematsu_majority">{{cite court|litigants=Korematsu v. United States|court=Supreme Court of the United States|reporter=U.S.|vol=323|opinion=214|pinpoint=Majority opinion by [[Hugo Black]]|year=1944|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214#writing-USSC_CR_0323_0214_ZO |access-date=April 24, 2018}}</ref><ref name=hirabayashi>{{cite court |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/320/81.html |litigants=[[Hirabayashi v. United States]] |access-date=September 15, 2006 }}</ref>

These new court decisions rested on a series of documents recovered from the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] showing that the government had altered, suppressed, and withheld important and relevant information from the Supreme Court, including the Final Report by General DeWitt justifying the incarceration program.<ref name="Irons"/> The Army had destroyed documents in an effort to hide alterations that had been made to the report to reduce their racist content.<ref name=hirabayashi/> The ''coram nobis'' cases vacated the convictions of Korematsu and Hirabayashi (Yasui died before his case was heard, rendering it moot), and are regarded as part of the impetus to gain passage of the [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]].<ref name="Irons"/>

The rulings of the US Supreme Court in the Korematsu and Hirabayashi cases were criticized in Dictum in the 2018 majority opinion of ''[[Trump v. Hawaii]]'' upholding a ban on immigration of nationals from several Muslim majority countries but not overruled as it fell outside the case-law applicable to the lawsuit.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/26/17505902/supreme-court-korematsu-japanese-internment-camps|title=Supreme Court finally condemns 1944 decision that allowed Japanese internment during World War II|work=Vox|access-date=2018-09-22}}</ref> Regarding the Korematsu case, [[John Roberts|Chief Justice Roberts]] wrote: "The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority."<ref name="Trump v. Hawaii">''Trump v. Hawaii'', [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf 585 U.S. ___] (2018)</ref>{{rp|38}}<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/politics/korematsu-supreme-court-travel-ban-roberts-sotomayor/index.html | title = Supreme Court finally rejects infamous Korematsu decision on Japanese-American internment | first = Ariane | last = de Vogue | date = June 26, 2018 | access-date = June 26, 2018 | publisher = [[CNN]] }}</ref><ref name="Savage">{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/korematsu-supreme-court-ruling.html | title = Korematsu, Notorious Supreme Court Ruling on Japanese Internment, Is Finally Tossed Out | first = Charlie | last = Savage | date = June 26, 2018 | access-date = June 26, 2018 | work = [[The New York Times]] }}</ref>

Former Supreme Court Justice [[Tom C. Clark]], who represented the US Department of Justice in the "relocation", writes in the epilogue to the book ''Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans'' (1992):<ref>{{cite book |author=Conrat, Maisie |author2=Conrat, Richard| title=Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans|date=1992| publisher=Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press for the California Historical Society|url=https://archive.org/details/executiveorder9000conr_0|isbn=978-0-262-53023-1}}</ref><ref name="korematsu_majority" />

{{blockquote|
The truth is—as this deplorable experience proves—that constitutions and laws are not sufficient of themselves... Despite the unequivocal language of the [[United States Constitution|Constitution of the United States]] that the [[writ of habeas corpus]] shall not be suspended, and despite the Fifth Amendment's command that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, both of these constitutional safeguards were denied by military action under Executive Order 9066.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/executiveorder9000conr_0/page/n123 |publisher=Asian American Books |author=Conrat, Maisie |author2=Conrat, Richard|title=Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans |date=1992 |isbn=978-0-262-53023-1 |at=Back cover of the book}}</ref>
}}

== See also ==
{{Portal|Japan|United States}}
* [[Allied prisoners of war of Japan]]
* [[Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States]]
* [[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Expulsion of Germans]]
* [[Internment of German Americans]], in World War II
* [[Internment of Italian Americans]], in World War II
* [[Internment of Japanese Canadians]], in World War II
* [[Japanese Americans]]
* [[Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies]]
* [[Nativism (politics) in the United States]]
* [[Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States]]
* [[Yellow Peril]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{NARA}}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box|onlinebooks=yes}}
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Daniels, Roger. "The Decisions to Relocate the North American Japanese: Another Look," ''Pacific Historical Review'' (1982) 51#1 pp 71–77; states that the U.S. and Canada coordinated their policies
* {{cite book |last=de Nevers |first=Nacy Clark |year=2004 |url=https://archive.org/details/colonelpacifistk00neve |title=The Colonel and the Pacifist: Karl Bendetsen, Perry Saito, and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II |publisher=University of Utah Press |location=Salt Lake City |isbn=978-0-87480-789-9}}
* Drinnon, Richard. ''Keeper of Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Meyer and American Racism.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
* {{Cite book |title=Japanese-American civilian prisoner exchanges and detention camps, 1941–45 |last=Elleman |first=Bruce |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-33188-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00elle_0/page/179 179] |url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00elle_0 |url-access=registration |access-date=September 14, 2009}}
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/pawnsintriangleo00unse |title=Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States |publisher=University of Washington Press |location=Seattle |last=Gardiner |first=Clinton Harvey |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-295-95855-2}}
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/impoundeddorothe00unse |title=Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |editor-last=Gordon |editor-first=Linda and Gary Y. Okihiro |year=2006 }}
* {{Cite book | author=Harth, Erica | title=Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans | publisher=Palgrave, New York | year=2001 | isbn=0-312-22199-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/lastwitnesses00eric }}
* {{cite book |last1=Hinnershitz |first1=Stephanie D. |title=Japanese American Incarceration |date=2022 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9995-3 |language=en}}
* Kiyota, Minoru and Ronald S. Green. ''The case of Japanese Americans during World War II: suppression of civil liberty''. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-7734-6450-6}}
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/longafterlifeofn00inou |title=The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, CA|last=Inouye |first=Karen M. |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-5036-0056-0 }}
* Leonard, Kevin Allen. "'Is That What We Fought for?' Japanese Americans and Racism in California, The Impact of World War II." ''Western Historical Quarterly'' 21.4 (1990): 463-482. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/969251 online]
* Lotchin, Roger W. ''Japanese American Relocation in World War II: A Reconsideration'' (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/prisonspatriotsj00lyon |title=Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, and Historical Memory |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia |last=Lyon |first=Chertin M. |year=2012 }}
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/rememberingheart00mack |title=Remembering Heart Mountain: Essays on Japanese American Internment in Wyoming |publisher=Western History Publications |location=Wyoming |editor=Mike Mackey |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-9661556-1-7 }}
* Ng, Wendy L. ''Japanese American Internment During World War II: A History and Reference Guide'' (Greenwood, 2002).
* Platts, Adam. ''American Internment: World War II Japanese American Internment Camps'' (Lulu, 2022).
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/byorderofpreside00robi |title=By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |last=Robinson |first=Greg |year=2001 }}
* {{Cite book | author=Robinson, Greg | title=A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America | url=https://archive.org/details/tragedyofdemocra00robi | url-access=registration | publisher=Columbia University Press | year=2009 | isbn=978-0-231-12922-0}}
* [[John E. Schmitz]] (2021), ''Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War'', University of Nebraska Press, 2021. {{ISBN| 978-1-4962-3887-0}}.
* {{cite book | last1=Tsukamoto | first1=Mary | last2=Pinkerton | first2=Elizabeth | title=We the People | publisher=Laguna Publishers | date=1988 | isbn=0-944665-42-X}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Japanese American internment|Internment of Japanese Americans}}
* [https://encyclopedia.densho.org/ Densho Encyclopedia]—resource about the history of the Japanese American WWII exclusion and incarceration
* [https://ireizo.com/ Ireizō]—website that contains the names of every single individual with Japanese ancestry who was incarcerated in an internment camp within the United States during WWII
* [https://imdb.com/title/tt4743220/ ''We Said No!No! A Story of Civil Disobedience'']—Documentary produced, written and directed by Brian Tadashi Maeda (2023)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRXxCFrG_yI ''Japanese Relocation'' (1942)]—US government film on Japanese-American internment

{{Internment of Japanese Americans}}
{{USWWII}}

[[Category:Internment of Japanese Americans| ]]
[[Category:Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
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[[Category:Internments in the United States|Japanese Americans]]
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[[Category:Persecution of Buddhists]]
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[[Category:Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
[[Category:United States home front during World War II]]
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