Tuesday January 17, 2012 Seating Chart / Attendance Set up ISN for second semester Take notes on Japanese Internment Camps Watch short video clip on Discovery Education about Executive order 9066

Japanese Internment Camps During World War 2 Executive Order 9066 Japanese Internment Camps During World War 2

Objective The student will be able to explain what everyday life was like in a Japanese Internment camp and why Japanese Americans were placed in them.

Guiding Questions What individual rights and liberties does everyone in the United States have under the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence? Is there ever a time when it would be okay to take those rights away from somebody?

History of Prejudice In the 1840’s many Chinese came to America and settled in California after the recent discovery of gold in California 1848-49. 25% of the miners were Chinese Article 19 of the California state constitution authorized cities to expel or kick out Chinese workers and forbid companies from hiring them.

Japanese replace Chinese Big business and elected officials soon ganged up on the Chinese and forced the government to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. As the Chinese workers left they were replaced by the Japanese, who worked menial jobs for very little pay.

Japanese Settlers Japanese settled in Hawaii to harvest sugar cane and California to work on the farms. 61,000 went to Hawaii and 24,000 went to California by the 1900’s. Soon Japanese workers striked for higher wages, which they got. Japanese were still denied employment in many industries, their children could not go to public schools, and they could not own land.

Japanese Americans Japanese immigration for permanent citizenship was banned in 1924. Newspapers, radio, and motion pictures stereotyped Japanese Americans as untrustworthy and inassimilable. As Japan became more powerful they portrayed Japanese Americans as spies.

Japanese Internment On December 7th, 1941 Japan Attacked Pearl harbor. In February 0f 1942, FDR signed executive order 9066, which authorized military commanders to exclude people from any area and placed under watch. All Japanese Americans and nationals on the west coast were placed in internment camps

Some Granted Leave In 1943-44 33% were allowed to temporarily leave for military duty. 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the armed forces. All communication was controlled by the camp and at many the Japanese language was banned. All prisoners had to denounce Japan and take an oath of loyalty towards the U.S.

Supreme Court Judges and Justices were not immune (exempt) from the prejudice at the time. In Hirabayashi v U.S. the court ruled that curfew may be imposed against one group of Americans based solely on ancestry. In Korematsu v U.S. they ruled that one group of citizens may be singled out and expelled from their homes and imprisoned for years without trial.

A Return Home In January of 1945 some Japanese Americans were allowed to return to their homes. The last camp closed in October of 1946.

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 A piece of legislation that granted a Presidential apology and monetary redress payments to Japanese Americans who were wrongfully treated during WWII. Payments of 20,000 dollars were authorized to each Japanese American that was wronged and a public relations program was started to prevent this from happening again.