Power point created by Robert L. Martinez Primary Source Content: Speaking of America: Vol. II, by Laura Belmonte The Internment of Japanese-Americans

During the war years, the rise of defense industries triggered a massive social migration. Millions left rural areas and moved to the cities seeking defense jobs.

This population shift generated social tensions as migrants competed for jobs and housing.

In 1943 alone, forty-seven cities reported racial clashes. The bloodiest occurred in Detroit, where a June riot left thirty-four people dead and two million dollars in property damage.

The following month, hostilities between white servicemen and Latino pachucos degenerated into four days of violence in Los Angeles.

The internment of 112,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast was the era’s most notorious racial incident.

California had a long history of intolerance toward Asians and Asian Americans.

Unlike Italian Americans or German Americans, Japanese Americans were a relatively small and isolated community focused in three states.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, fears of Japanese subversion and racism fueled popular demands that “Japs” be imprisoned.

In February 1942, despite the fact that not a single Japanese American had been found guilty of disloyalty or espionage, President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed to political pressure and issued Executive Order

The directive forced Japanese Americans living in California, Oregon, and Washington to live in relocation camps for the duration of the war.

The decision outraged Japanese Americans, more than two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.

Receiving only seventy-two hours notice, they were forced to sell their property and possessions at very discounted prices and then report to internment centers scattered throughout the West.

Armed guards patrolled the camps, and living conditions were usually poor.

Ironically, the order did not apply to Hawaii, the U.S. territory with the highest percentage of Japanese Americans.

Weaknesses in the relocation policy became apparent. A shortage of agricultural workers prompted the government to release several internees almost immediately.

Private humanitarian groups secured the release of hundreds of young people by offering college scholarships or vocational training.

Thousands of Japanese-American men got out of the camps by enlisting in armed services.

Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the internment policy in Korematsu v. United States (1944), the government began releasing internees as wartime hysteria subsided.

In 1988, the U.S. Congress issued an apology and awarded $20,000 to each of the 80,000 survivors of the relocation program.