History Internment OPVL

Korematsu vs. United States

A 1944 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional.

Ex parte Endo

A U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down on December 18, 1944, in which the justices unanimously ruled that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was "concededly loyal" to the United States. Although the court did not touch on the constitutionality of the exclusion of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast—which they had, contradictorily, found not to violate citizen rights in their Korematsu v. United States decision on the same date—the Endo ruling nonetheless led to the reopening of the West Coast to Japanese Americans after their incarceration in camps across the U.S. interior during World War II.

executive order 9066

A U.S. presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the secretary of war to prescribe certain areas as military zones. Eventually, it cleared the way for the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the U.S. government in 1942 of about 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese living along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps." Relocation and internment occurred in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan's rapid military conquest of a large portion of Asia and the Pacific made its military forces seem unstoppable to some Americans. All those of Japanese descent who lived on the West Coast of the United States were interned, while in Hawaii, where the 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed more than one-third of the population, an estimated 1,200 to 1,800 were interned. Of those interned, 62 percent were American citizens.

Niihau Incident

An incident that occurred on December 7, 1941, when Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi crash-landed his Zero on the Hawaiian island of Niʻihau after participating in the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was killed in a struggle with people on the island but initially received assistance from three local residents.

$2 billion

Japanese Americans, faced with their immediate removal from cities on the West Coast, found themselves forced to sell their homes, businesses, and personal possessions for whatever they could get. The Nisei together lost an estimated ___ in property. A 1943 War Department report noted that the internees were housed in "tar paper covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind." The Heart Mountain, Wyoming, relocation camp greeted internees with barbed-wire fences, toilets with no partitions, cots rather than beds, and a food budget of 45 cents per day. Temperatures at Heart Mountain frequently dropped to below zero during the winter months, and since many of the internees were not told where they were going, they did not include winter clothing in their belongings.

Executive Order 9066 February 1942

Many Americans (including many government officials) believed that many Japanese nationals (Issei) and Japanese Americans (Nisei) constituted a risk to national security, either due to possible espionage or sabotage. Since most Japanese lived along the West Coast—the region which the Japanese would likely attack—the government decided to remove them and relocate them to the interior of the U.S. ___, signed by FDR in ___, gave U.S. military commanders the authority to remove anyone ("exclude") from a "military area" considered a threat to national security. White Americans held many stereotypes about Japanese Americans, most of which were documented by the films of the period, as well as by propaganda posters encouraging Americans to become more involved in the war effort. These sources generally showed Japanese with buck teeth, thick eyeglasses, slanted eyes, rumpled clothes, etc. In addition, these also depicted Japanese as only being able to speak in halting, pidgin English. Answers may vary, but students will likely say that internment was not justified, especially in light of the report that emerged from the Korematsu case in the 1980s stating that the government had already concluded that Japanese Americans posed a negligible threat to national security. Students may also say that American citizens have a constitutional right regardless of race because of due process and habeas corpus. Others may say that in the times of uncertainty that accompany war, the government has the authority to take such actions to protect national security.

Fred Korematsu 1942 valid use of his power purposely withheld key evidence never 1984 1998

One challenge to the relocation order came from ____, a Japanese American from San Leandro, CA, who refused to obey the relocation order. Authorities arrested him and put him in a relocation camp with his family until trial. He was convicted in federal court and sentenced to five years' probation. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, Korematsu appealed his conviction until it reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In ___, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Korematsu, stating that Roosevelt's order requiring relocation of Japanese Americans was a ___ as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. However, Justice Frank Murphy's scathing dissent noted that "the exclusion of Japanese falls into the ugly abyss of racism," and equated relocation with the same type of racism exhibited by the Axis Powers. In the early 1980s, documents came to light showing that the federal government had ___ that might have cleared Korematsu, including documents proving that Japanese Americans had ___ posed any meaningful risk to national security. In __, a federal appeals court vacated the original judgment (that is, declared that Korematsu's conviction had never legally happened), citing a WWII-era government report condemning the case for interment as having been based on "willful historical inaccuracies and intentional falsehoods." The appeals court, however, did not overturn the Supreme Court's decision concerning the president's war powers. In ___, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his ongoing work in the field of civil rights. Fred Korematsu died in 2005.

Manzanar Sierra Nevada Mountains 12,000

Perhaps the best known of all the concentration camps was ___, located in the foothills of the __ in the Owens Valley region of California. At its height, it housed nearly __ internees. The climate there ranged widely, with extremely hot desert summers and winter temperatures frequently falling below freezing at night. High winds frequently posed a problem, especially considering the shoddy construction of most of the camp's barracks. Internees generally ate food similar to what soldiers received, with little meat due to rationing. However, residents of the camp started a chicken farm and hog farm to supplement their diets. Three months after the Japanese surrendered in World War II, the government closed Manzanar. Internees received $25 for train or bus fare. Some had to be removed from the camp because they did not have any place to go to after the war. It was declared a National Historic Site in 1992.

posting large signs loyalty

Some Nisei made a last-ditch attempt to prove their patriotism by ___ on their businesses and homes denoting their citizenship. Most were interned anyway. Even under the difficult conditions they endured in the camps, most accepted their fate and submitted to internment, hoping that compliance might prove their ___ to the U.S.

prejudices Jim Crow laws Chinese espionage or sabotage

The fear of Japanese Americans came not only from Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, but also from deep-seated ____ against Nisei. Increasing Japanese immigration to California beginning the late 19th century had resulted in legislation in some cities similar to the ____ of the American South. Reports of Japanese atrocities against the ___ in the early 1930s further lowered public opinion of the Japanese. Groups of farmers in California resented having to compete with "foreigners" and wanted to take over their land. However, no concrete evidence of Japanese American ___ was ever uncovered during the war; no convictions on such charges ever materialized. In addition, Hawaii did not implement the relocation policy, and no incidents of espionage or sabotage occurred there.

Civil Liberties Act of 1988 $20,000 Civil Liberties Act of 1992

The federal government acknowledged its error of interning Japanese Americans with the ___. Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson and California Congressman Norman Mineta sponsored the bill—the two had met at a Boy Scout function while Mineta was interned in a Wyoming camp. The act, signed by President Ronald Reagan, stipulated that the U.S. government formally apologize for the internment. It also authorized a cash payment of ___ to each surviving internee; nearly $1.2 billion was distributed. A subsequent act, the ____, added another $400 million to ensure that all living internees would receive the reparations. The act, passed by President George H.W. Bush, again formally apologized for Japanese American internment.

German Americans and Italian Americans Ellis Island Maryland and Tennessee 10,000 3000

The government also interned ___ and ___ during the war, although in much smaller numbers than Japanese Americans. The Japanese American internment overshadowed the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service's program to remove what it saw as German and Italian security threats from of the mainstream U.S. population. As with the Japanese Americans, the vast majority were American citizens. Various locations, including ___ in New York as well as sites in __ and ___, became internment camps. Best estimates say that the government held more than ___ Germans and ___ Italians. As with the Nisei, the German and Italian internees were shopkeepers, farmers, and businessmen, not diplomats or people involved in government service. No evidence of espionage activity or sabotage by those investigated or interned has ever come to light. Few records of German American or Italian American internment survive (or have been released), though several persons have attempted to uncover more information.

national security relocation 120,000 Issei Nisei 1942 Executive Order 9066 military areas West Coast Japanese ancestry Germans, Italians, and German Jews Pearl Harbor

Wartime civil-defense measures such as blackouts and air-raid drills prepared Americans for attacks that never occurred, but did little more than inconvenience people. However, the federal government instituted a program to maintain ___that proved far more damaging—the ___ of about ___ Japanese nationals (called ___) and Japanese American citizens (___) to internment camps across the interior of the western U.S. In early ___, FDR issued ___, which allowed for the exclusion from "___" anyone deemed a threat to national security. Designating the__ a "military area," the government removed all persons of ____ (along with a few thousand ____). Many Americans, especially on the West Coast, supported the policy, contending that they had likely assisted the Japanese navy in planning and carrying out the attack on ___, and might help facilitate future attacks.

protest patriotism 42nd Regimental Combat Team Go for Broke 1943 September 1944 Purple Heart Battalio decorated unit

While many Nisei went to relocation camps across the West, some decided on enlisting in the armed forces as the best way to ___against concerns about their ___. The 4___ (known as the "___" regiment) became one of the best known and most well-respected army units during the war. The government originally excluded Nisei from the armed forces, but had reversed its policy by ___, accepting some from relocation camps and many from National Guard units in Hawaii. Trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, the 442nd was deployed in ___, and soon saw action in the Italian campaign, including Anzio. More than half of the unit became casualties during their Italian service. While a few Nisei served as intelligence agents in the Pacific Theater, the military prohibited them from fighting against Japan. German Americans and Italian Americans had no such restrictions placed on their service. After the liberation of Rome, the 442nd assisted in the invasion of southern France. In the Italian and French campaigns combined, the unit saw an extraordinarily high casualty rate, with some sources estimating casualties (including cases of trench foot and various injuries) as high as 93 percent, giving the 442nd the nickname, the "___n." At the end of the war, the 442nd became the most ___ in U.S. military history, with more than 18,000 awards and medals earned, including more than 9000 Purple Hearts. Soldiers from the 442nd also were awarded 21 Congressional Medals of Honor; the unit as a whole received seven Presidential Unit Citations for its service in the European Theater

German and Italian Americans

While not on the same scale as Japanese Americans, the government also relocated and interned ___ and ___, specifically because the U.S. was also fighting these two nations in Europe. Much as with the Japanese Americans, they were never actually security risks; no evidence of espionage or sabotage was ever uncovered in any of cases involving these internees.

1988 1992

civil liberties act of ___ and ___

feb 19, 1942

executive order 9066 was established in

January 1945

internment ended in ___

1980s

korematsu case in the ___

if looking into the future:primary source looking at what will most likely happen. written before a certain date or finalization limited to one perspective overly emotional and overstates reaction to get more reasonable sentiment

limitation in primary sources

limited view due to being written to close to event beliefs of the author nationality focuses on process rather than event

limitation in professor

442nd Regimental Combat Team Japanese Americans

the ____ proved ___ to be as skilled in combat as white troops

from officials direct line of communication between officials

value in letters

academic has opportunity to research topic in depth with hindsight if author lives during event

value in professor

Executive Order 9066

• Franklin Roosevelt's ___ authorized the designation of military areas and paved the way for the eventual internment of Japanese Americans.

1944 Korematsu vs. United States

• In __, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in ___, holding that the exclusion and internment process was constitutional.

1942 110,000 Pearl Harbor

• Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the U.S. government in __ of about __ Japanese Americans and Japanese living along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps." It occurred in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on ___.