The United States government’s discrimination against Japanese Americans did not begin with internment. As early as 1922, the Supreme Court decided that Japanese immigrants were "aliens ineligible to citizenship," and in 1924, Congress passed a law practically prohibiting Japanese from immigrating to America (Stein 9). Even earlier, the media had started rumors of the "Yellow Peril" of Japan invading Mexico and the United States (Davis 15).

Things were certainly no easier for Japanese Americans after the nation of their origin sneak attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Japanese airplanes sank seven American battleships and destroyers and heavily damaged several more. They destroyed 188 planes. Most importantly to Americans, the Japanese attack killed or injured 3,500 soldiers, sailors, and airmen (Davis 4).

The next day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. The words of his address showed the anger and sense of betrayal America felt after the sneak attack: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." His words had a great effect on Congress; the Senate unanimously complied with the President’s request, and only one member of the House of Representatives voted against it (Davis 6).

The 300,000 Japanese Americans living in America and Hawaii – which was not yet a state – could hardly believe that the attack had happened. They, who considered themselves fully American, were outraged that any nation had dared to attack their new homeland. Many prepared to join American armed forces to fight for their country (Davis 6-7).

Japanese Americans actually were divided into two groups, based on when they arrived in the United States. The Issei were Japanese citizens living in America. By America’s entry into World War II, the vast majority of Japanese Americans were Nisei – American citizens whose parents were Japanese. The third major group at the time was the Kibei, those who had been born in America but had been educated in Japan (Davis 17, 20, 78).

Despite the loyalty of Japanese Americans, a wave of misguided patriotism and hate for them broke over America. Many blamed them for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some people suggested that all Japanese Americans be moved away from the coast – three-quarters of Japanese Americans lived in California – in order to prevent them from signaling Japanese ships or helping to plan an invasion. One advocate of this was Lieutenant General John De Witt, head of the Western Defense Command, which was responsible for the defense of the states of Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. In a letter to the Secretary of War, General De Witt wrote:

"While many second- and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become "Americanized," the racial strains are undiluted…. It therefore follows that along the American coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today…. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." (Stein 14)

Knowing that many of their white neighbors felt the same way, some Japanese Americans unhappily decided to sever all ties with Japan. They buried or burned samurai swords, Buddhist family shrines, ceremonial dolls, Japanese clothing, and Japanese books, magazines, and pictures (Davis 8).

The government soon showed its mistrust of some aliens. The FBI arrested 1,370 Japanese American community leaders within four days of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The FBI also arrested German and Italian Americans. None of these apprehensions were conducted with proof that any aliens were disloyal (Davis 8-9).

However, the government never accused any entire group of treachery. The attorney general of the United States, Francis Biddle, assured Americans that "‘At no time will the government engage in wholesale condemnation of any alien group.’" (Davis 9) President Roosevelt promised similar things (Davis 9).

However, General De Witt’s superiors in the War Department wanted to take control of enemy aliens, who are citizens of a country with which the United States is at war, away from the Justice Department, who had been handling the affair. The War Department wanted full control of how the government dealt with enemy aliens, since it believed the Justice Department was too concerned with civil liberties to effectively deal with security issues. In January of 1942, the Justice Department yielded (Davis 29-30).

Now the War Department had the authority to order FBI agents to search Issei homes without warrants. FBI agents soon began confiscating contraband: knives, cameras, and explosives, which were sometimes used for farming. The War Department also convinced the attorney general to prohibit Japanese Americans from living near the Los Angeles airport or the San Francisco waterfront. Later, the entire coastline from Oregon to the suburbs of Los Angeles was a restricted area to Japanese Americans (Davis 30-32).

The greatest blow yet, though, to the freedoms of Japanese Americans – enemy aliens and American citizens alike – came on February 19, 1942. That night, President Roosevelt sign Executive Order 9066. Now, Secretary of War Henry Stimson was authorized "to prescribe military areas …from which any or all person may be excluded…" The areas could be any size. Legally, the order was based on the President’s war powers as granted to him in the Constitution. In March, Congress passed a law, Public Law 503, that made violation of the President’s order a Federal crime (Davis 37, 40).

Although the order applied to all races in wording, most people understood Executive Order 9066 as applying only to the Japanese. However, General De Witt was ordered to remove German and Italian aliens whom he considered serious risks to security (Davis 40).

On March 18, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102. This one established the War Relocation Authority (WRA). The WRA had the authority to remove anybody the War Department told it to from any area. The action did not leave such people in the streets. The WRA had the ability to provide employment for the people it relocated. Executive Order 9102 created a civilian agency to house people relocated under Executive Order 9066 (Executive Order 9102).

General De Witt had already began encouraging Japanese Americans to voluntarily move from Military Area Number One, a strip of land extending along the West Coast into Arizona. He promised them that they could settle in other parts of the country defended by Western Defense Command. There, he said, they probably would not be disturbed again (Davis 44).

De Witt set up the Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA) to help him move Japanese Americans out of Military Area Number One. The WCCA constructed two "reception centers" in Manzanar, California, and Parker, Arizona, to temporarily house those removed from their homes. From their, the army said, Japanese Americans could move eastward to find jobs and gain community acceptance (Davis 45).

Meanwhile, the WRA, which was headed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s brother, Milton Eisenhower, had decided to order Japanese Americans in Military Area Number One out of their homes. The WRA and WCCA created 108 areas from which Japanese Americans – aliens and "non-aliens" alike – would be excluded. The relocation announcements gave "All Persons of Japanese Ancestry" a week’s notice to pack up belongings and to arrange for their property to be taken care of while they were away. People with "Japanese Ancestry" included anybody with a Japanese ancestor. This was similar to the Nazis’ definition of "Jew," although neither the WRA nor WCCA intended to eliminate all Japanese people (Davis 46-47).

A WCCA-administrated Civil Control Center in each of the 108 zones helped the Japanese Americans to find out more details about the relocation and to arrange to lease, sell, or store property. The Civil Control Centers also gave family an identification number. They instructed the Japanese Americans to carry only what they or their families could carry. They were limited to clothes, bedding, linens, kitchen utensils, and personal items. Other items were left behind, stored with the government, or left with white neighbors (Davis 47-49).

After boarding buses to leave their homes, Japanese Americans they arrived at assembly centers, usually fairgrounds or racetracks, which were mostly in California, but also in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. All together, they housed over 100,000 people. Military police guarded each of the assembly centers (Davis 51).

The living quarters for Japanese Americans in the centers were often converted chicken houses, pigpens, or horse stalls. Families lived in small, bare rooms. At Manzanar, two families shared a single room. Only the cooperation of the internees helped to make them livable. Each assembly center had its own hospital, mess hall, and schools. Eventually, the army established a reception hall so that the internees could receive visitors. Some centers grew their own food and had factories. Assembly centers resembled small towns (Davis 58-64).

Sometimes, people were temporarily allowed to leave the assembly centers to work as farm hands or to attend college. The WRA heavily supported this plan; it preferred allowing Japanese Americans to live normal lives to interning them in camps. Public opinion, however, stopped this philosophy from being more fully carried out (Davis 65-66).

At the same time, other Allied nations were relocating their own Japanese, such as Canada, which took action similar to that of America’s (Davis 54).

During the summer of 1942, the WRA began moving Japanese Americans into the ten permanent camps. The assembly centers at Manzanar and Parker were now placed under the WRA’s jurisdiction and made permanent camps. The eight other permanent camps had been built by the WRA specifically for the task of housing internees for a prolonged period of time. In addition to Manzanar and Parker, there were Tule Lake, in California; Poston and Gila, in Arizona; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Minidoka, Idaho; Topaz, Utah; and Granada, in Colorado. Arkansas also housed two camps: Rohwer and Jerome (Davis 67).

Conditions at the camps were far from pleasant. Manzanar, for example, housed its internees in barracks 120 feet long and twenty feet wide. The barracks were divided into six one-room apartments. Each group of fifteen barracks shared baths, latrines, and mess buildings (http://members.aol.com/EARTHSUN/Manzanar.html). The construction of the camps was poor in quality. When Milton Eisenhower testified before the Senate appropriations committee, he said of the camps, "‘[The construction] is so very cheap that, frankly, if it stands up for the duration we are going to be lucky.’" (http://www.geocities.com/athens/8420/camps.htm)

Department of Justice camps held more than 2200 Japanese immigrants who were non-citizens. More than half of these "dangerous" people, whom the Federal government wanted to use for hostage exchanges with Japan, were Peruvian; the rest were from other Latin American countries. After the war, many were not allowed to return to the countries they were taken from. In fact, some 900 Japanese Peruvians were "voluntarily" sent back to Japan after the war. Three hundred of them successfully fought the decision, and they were allowed to settle in Seabrook, New Jersey (http://www.geocities.com/athens/8420/camps.htm).

Sometimes the guards were brutal. Rather than asking internees who were outside camp boundaries to halt or to return, some guards shot them. According to a WRA report found at unknownxxx, one officer said "that he only hoped the guard would bother to ask him (an escaping inmate) to halt," since "the guards were finding guard service very monotonous, and that nothing would suit them better than to have a little excitement, such as shooting a Jap."

Eventually, some Japanese men were allowed out of the camps to join the US Army’s 100^th Infantry Battalion and later the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, units made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans. If this was a test of the loyalty of Japanese Americans, the 100/442 passed with flying colors. With a Congressional Medal of Honor, 560 Silver Stars, 4,000 Bronze Stars, and nearly 10,000 Purple Hearts, and thousands of other decorations, the members of 100/442 won "more medals for bravery than any other American unit its size during all of World War II." (Stein 8, 18)

The soldiers of the 100/442 were not the only Japanese Americans who served their country during World War II. In the Pacific theater, many Japanese Americans worked as spies or decoders for the Allies. General Charles Willoughby, head of intelligence under General MacArthur, said that Japanese Americans "‘saved countless Allied lives and shortened the war by two years.’" (Stein 43)

Even so, the majority of Japanese Americans remained in internment camps for the duration of the war. When they finally were released, they found their homes and stores vandalized or sold as abandoned property (Stein 40).

Most of the internment camps closed in October and November of 1945, although one WRA installation remained open until March 20, 1946, despite the fact that Japan had surrendered and no longer posed a military threat to the United States or its allies (http://www.geocities.com/athens/8420/camps.htm).

Hawaii, where a third of the population was Japanese, was a different story, since it was a territory and not yet a state. Even though it was the site of the beginning of the fear and hatred of Japanese Americans, nobody had been thrown into internment camps. In fact, it was where the 100/442 had started. (Stein 18, 40).

The navy had tried to remove all Japanese from Hawaii. Plans had even been made to do so. However, the Japanese community there made up one third of the total population. The Japanese were essential to Hawaii’s economy. More important, there simply were not enough resources available to relocate the territory’s 160,000 Japanese (Davis 55).

Meanwhile, the Axis powers had been losing the war. The Allies invaded Italy and France, ending the war in Europe. America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945. Japan surrendered. World War II was over.

The debate over internment, however, was not. Some people argue to this day that internment was an act of racism, since only Japanese Americans were interned. Furthermore, they say, internment is a gross violation of civil rights. There was no evidence, in their minds, that internment was necessary.

Others point out that internment has long been a part of international law. The Supreme Court twice upheld internment in the cases "Ludecke v. Watkins" and "Johnson v. Eisentrager." Internment, in their eyes, was perfectly legal (Fallon and Hopwood).

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