Unjustly imprisoned

This story was adapted for a high school audience from the  original version .  

Imagine you’re a legal resident of the United States and suddenly your government gives you the order to go to prison because of your race or ethnicity. Between 1942 and 1946 the United States government did exactly that.  

During WWII they ordered over 120,000 Japanese Americans out of their homes and imprisoned them in internment camps. Around 70,000 of the people affected were United States citizens. Another 50,000 people were permanent residents. They were men, women, and even children.  

Several combined factors created this shocking situation. But the final push was Japan’s surprise bombing of the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a U.S. territory at the time, on December 7, 1941. After this attack, fear surged through the country. Claiming national security was the reason, the government forced this group of people into concentration camps. They were the victims of a wave of war hysteria and xenophobia—a fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners. These people were detained without formal charges. They also had no chance to appeal their imprisonment. 

In 1982 the federal government admitted their excuse of “military necessity” for imprisoning Japanese Americans was exactly that—an excuse. The real reason for the internment policy was rooted in widespread racism. And failure of leadership made the situation worse. More than 80 years later the risk of history repeating itself is still real. Forcibly moving people and detaining civilians is still a threat in modern times. 

Making assumptions that a person is loyal to a place because of their race or ethnicity still happens today. The story of Japanese American internment is a clear example of what can go wrong when populist fear overpowers logic and reasoning, especially in a time of crisis. 

The first large wave of Japanese immigrants landed in the United States in the mid 1880s. They arrived shortly after Japan ended its policy of sakoku, or economic and cultural isolation. This wave happened just after Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 reduced the flow of laborers from China. Limiting immigration from China opened opportunities for newly arrived Japanese immigrants during a time of rapid industrialization in the United States.  

The first generation of immigrants from Japan, known as the Issei, quickly made economic gains. Their success caused many working-class White Americans to feel jealously. Scholars estimate that Japanese Americans farmed four percent of the agricultural land in California in the first half of the 20th century. However, they created as much as 10 percent of the state’s agricultural value. 

Because they were so successful the number of anti-Japanese interest groups increased along the West Coast. These groups spread rumors that Japanese immigrants would overpower White-owned businesses. They also claimed these immigrants would destroy traditional American cultural values.  

Media sources also shared opinions that xenophobia was "common sense." And the slogan of the “Yellow Peril” became common after the late 19th century. In 1907 the U.S. government gave in to pressure and signed an informal “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan. The agreement limited the immigration numbers of unskilled Japanese laborers. Then the National Origins Act of 1924 followed. This act stopped immigration from Japan. 

The federal government restricted immigrants born in Japan, called Issei, from becoming naturalized citizens. The restrictions limited their rights and protections that citizenship provides. To enforce these restrictions, they used the Naturalization Act of 1790. They further strengthened the restrictions in the 1922 U.S. Supreme Court case Ozawa v. United States.  

However, the children of the Issei, who were known as Nisei, and grandchildren, Sansei,  were born American citizens. They typically spoke English as their first language. These two groups were allowed rights to own land. 

These second- and third-generation children of immigrants identified as American. Yet obvious acts of racism were always an issue for them. Their small population didn’t help either. People of Japanese ancestry made up less than one percent of the total U.S. population. During the time of prejudice and war hysteria, Japanese Americans were an easy target for political scapegoating. Their limited political representation only made their situation worse.  

By 1940, after the start of WWII, and before the U.S. entered the war, the relationship between the United States and Japan became difficult. As tensions grew, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt questioned how trustworthy the Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were. Then he ordered an investigation to find out.  

The investigators presented a report to President Roosevelt a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It concluded that people of Japanese ancestry living in America were not a threat to the country. In fact, they displayed a great degree of loyalty to the United States. 

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a turning point. The day after the attack the United States declared war on Japan. The attack also set in motion a series of victories for the Empire of Japan. These events destroyed any remaining goodwill toward Japanese Americans. The officer in charge of Western Defense Command, Lt. General John L. DeWitt believed the Japanese would invade of the West Coast soon even though investigators said the opposite. He recommended creating military zones of exclusion for Japanese Americans to the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson. A military exclusion zone is an area where a group of people is not allowed.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, at the request of Secretary of War Stimson. The order authorized the army to remove civilians from the military exclusion zone. This zone included much of Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona. 

Executive Order 9066 did not specifically mention Japanese Americans. It did, however, provide legal justification for the Western Defense Command to create the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA). The WCCA managed the assembly centers. The WRA managed the "resettlement" of Japanese American families into internment camps. 

At first, Lt. General DeWitt thought relocating Japanese Americans would be a voluntary process. The studies showed Japanese Americans were loyal. However, popular opinion thought they were not. The interior mountain states outside the exclusion zones refused to accept evacuees unless they were confined. On March 27, 1942, the WCCA issued the first of 108 Civilian Exclusion Orders. These orders forced removal of civilians of Japanese ancestry. 

The impact on Japanese communities was traumatic. “I was driving down our country road…and I saw this huge poster,” Kiyo Sato later   recalled   in a December 2015 StoryCorps interview aired on Capital Public Radio. “And it said ‘instructions to those of Japanese ancestry’…I was so humiliated, and upset…” 

Japanese American families stored or sold most of their possessions and property. Some White communities helped their Japanese American neighbors by watching over or holding land in trust. The federal government also managed some warehousing facilities. However, all relocated families gave up nearly everything they owned. 

The only way for Japanese American families to show their loyalty was to agree to relocation and to give up their constitutional liberties. One evacuee stated: “We took whatever we could carry. So much we left behind, but the most valuable thing I lost was my freedom.” For many, the process was humiliating and dehumanizing: 

By the end of 1942, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were detained in the ten concentration camps hundreds of miles away from their homes. Many families would remain in these camps for the next three to four years. 

The ten WRA internment camps were not complete when the first evacuees arrived in June of 1942. The detained people often finished building their own housing. The WRA assigned each family a single 20-foot by 20-foot, tar-papered, barracks-style room. The government provided basic supplies such as cots and blankets, stoves, electricity, and a clothing allowance. In addition, the government organized mass facilities for schooling, eating, and bathing. 

Life was not comfortable in the camps. Jobs in the camps paid $12 per month for unskilled labor. Professional services paid as much as $19 per month. The WRA provided a $0.50 allowance for food per day for each evacuee. The WRA capped salaries and food rations to avoid complaints of “coddling” by anti-Japanese groups.  

Evacuees often thought ahead, predicting their needs. “[My father] hid inside each one of our bedrolls whatever he thought was important,” Kiyo Sato later recalled about the day her family left for relocation. “Hammer, nails, a roll of wire, a saw, a gallon jug, a bucket—can you imagine thinking about a bucket?” 

The WRA believed most detained families were loyal to the United States. But it assumed that the people had not fully assimilated to Western standards. This belief meant the WRA adopted a policy of enforced “Americanization.” 

Detained families tried to lead normal lives within the camps. They also tried to protect their children against the trauma of imprisonment. Within the camps they set up community governments, newspapers, and services such as grocery stores, barber shops, and cobblers. They also built basketball hoops from local materials and held baseball tournaments. The WRA encouraged these activities as part of its order for Americanization. 

But the “normality” of camp life was, not surprisingly, not very real. The reality of imprisonment was obvious. All camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences and towers staffed by armed guards. Evacuees were prisoners. They would be shot if they came too near their prison walls. 

During WWII roughly 30,000 Japanese Americans served in the military. Many were already enlisted before exclusion began. Others volunteered after they had been detained. In February of 1943, the War Department established the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers. To address the question of “loyalty” of recruits originating from internment camps, the WRA required them to answer a “Loyalty Questionnaire.” The WRA gave the questionnaire to all evacuees to assess loyalty. Two questions were key:  

Most families agreed to answer the questionnaire and completed it to the satisfaction of the WRA. The WRA decided those who refused to answer the survey, or who answered negatively questions 27 and 28, were “enemy aliens.” The WRA segregated those thought to be “disloyal” into a group. The 12,000 “disloyals” were sent to the internment camp at Tule Lake. 

When the War Relocation Authority was first created, its goal was to resettle evacuated families. It did not want to detain people forever. During the years of detainment, temporary “leave” was given to some evacuees to do field labor or for educational reasons. By June 1942, leaders thought the threat of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast was small. A year later, in March of 1943, the WCCA ended. Yet, by the end of 1943, only around 15 percent of the total detained Japanese Americans had been released from internment camps. 

In May 1944, Secretary of War Stimson recommended ending the West Coast military exclusion zone. But President Roosevelt waited until after the November 1944 election to take action. By the end of 1944 another 15 percent of evacuees were released. On January 2, 1945, exclusion officially ended. 

The Empire of Japan surrendered in August 1945, officially ending the war. But many evacuees remained imprisoned. Some Tule Lake prisoners were not freed until 1946. In June of that year, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9742. This order officially ended the Wartime Relocation Authority program. 

The families that had keepers to oversee their property returned home to some material wealth. However, most families returned to find land overgrown, and their few possessions looted. 

The people detained during World War II showed how resilient communities can be. They were able to adapt to, resist, and overcome the tyranny of a wartime government. 

“We heard this phrase often: kodomo no tame ni,” Kiyo Sato told her daughter, Cia Vancil, in their December 2015 interview. “For the sake of the children. We gotta do this for the sake of the children.”  

In the 1960s, detained Japanese Americans began pushing the government to admit they were wrong and to receive reparations. In 1982 the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians acknowledged the injustice, observing: 

The 1944 Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States supplied the legal basis for exclusion. This case is a prime example of how flawed legal decisions create problems. 

At the time, reports by the Federal Communications Commission, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had all found claims of Japanese American disloyalty to be false.  

When the case went to trial again in 1983, the world found out that Federal litigators hid the results of the investigation. 

Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, in removing Fred Korematsu’s conviction at the heart of the case, warned: 

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act. This document formally apologized to the American people of Japanese descent who were detained during the war. The Act gave funds to compensate 100,000 internment survivors in the amount of $20,000 each. 

The internment of Japanese Americans continues to be a troubling case study in the denial of personal liberty. This chapter of history is not complete. The danger of deferring justice for a minority is an ongoing reality. “In times of war, the laws fall silent,” warned late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, reflecting on the 1944 Korematsu ruling during a   speech   at the University of Hawaii in 2014. “It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again—in time of war.”