1. Internment Camps

2. Events Leading to Internment
The Japanese and Japanese-American were sent to internment camps after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Also Germans, German Americans, Italians, and Italian Americans were also relocated to camps due to the war.
America feared that these people were spies or invaders for the Axis Powers who could lead a home front attack.

3. Roosevelt stood his ground and went on to sign the order that would imprison many Americans of Japanese ancestry.
The signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 forced all accused ethnic groups to internment camps by use of his Commander-In-Chief war powers.
The order led approximately 120,000 ethnic Japanese peoples and Americans with Japanese relatives to be sent to internment camps.

4. Opposition of the Relocation
Many accused Americans showed that they were true patriots by joining up and reciting the “Pledge of Allegiance” and singing patriotic songs such as “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
Various people were apt to aid the citizens who lived in America, such as J. Edgar Hoover, an FBI Director, and Franklin Roosevelt’s own wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was unsuccessful in privately persuading him not to sign it.

5. Internment
Fear of disloyalty on the part of any Issei or Nisei was common among many Americans.
Issei: those born in Japan, regarded by the U.S. government as ineligible for U.S. citizenship.
Nisei: those born to Japan parents, thus U.S. citizens.
1/3 of the population of Hawaii was comprised of those of Japanese descent, thus many of them were not interned, however the islands were placed under martial law.
Video Clip
“Days of Waiting” 1:30 min
Questions to consider:
Describe life in a relocation camp. How is that life different from your own?
Describe the differing points of view held by the elderly and the young.
Japanese near trains during Relocation 
Housing in a Japanese Relocation camp 

8. War Relocation Authority(WRA) Centers

9. Condition of the Camps
The 1943 War Relocation Authority reported the internees were housed in “tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.”
They were built in desolate areas with severe, harsh weather conditions.

11. Life in Internment Camps Cont.
There was only a budget of 45 cents daily per capita for food rations, giving the internees little food.
Manzanar, the most widely known camp, northeast of Los Angeles, California, had the worst weather; cold temperatures and harsh, frequent dust storms.

12. Life in Internment Camps
The internees and their heirs, were allowed to stay with their families and were treated well by guards except if they violated rules.
Because they came from the West Coast, most of the internees did not have clothes adequately warm enough for Wyoming’s cold weather.

13. Life in Manzanar
Photos taken by Ansel Adams (

17. How the Internment was Viewed
Ones who were for the internment simply called internees “residents”, but Roosevelt privately referred the camps as “concentration camps”.
Many who were against the internment called it prejudice and called them concentration camps publicly against the War Relocation Authority.

18. Internment Ends
The Supreme Court ruled the imprisonment of loyal citizens unconstitutional in December 1944.
The ruling led to the government bringing individuals back to the West Coast on early The Japanese Americans were given $25 and a free ticket ride back to their homes.
Some migrated back to Japan, but most stayed to rebuild their lives.

19. In 1988, Congress implemented the Civil Liberties Act, apologizing on behalf of the nation for the "grave injustice" done to persons of Japanese ancestry. Congress declared that the internments had been "motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" and authorized $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who had suffered injustices during World War II. (

20. Aftermath and Compensation of Internment
Although compensation was paid for property losses, the ex-internees were still not able to fully recover their losses.
Young Americans started the Redress Movement in 1960 for an apology.
In 1988, President Ronald Regan signed a legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. Government.
The Manzanar Camp was reformed into a 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”.