Japanese Internment Camp

Japanese internment was relocation of 110,000 Japanese Americans in 1942, soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, ordered by the United States Government.

This attacked sparked immense paranoia and worry for the U.S government, fearing that someone within the country would make a deal with those from Japan.

Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into one of the 10 internment camps located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Arkansas.

The Executive Order 9066 was to protect against the chance of domestic espionage and sabotage and was considered a “military necessity”.

Japanese Americans were forced from their homes with only 48 hours to evacuate, taking little to no personal possessions with them.

The people had to suddenly uproot from their homes and businesses and enter these horrific internment camps.

The conditions of the camp were very poor and overcrowded.

The camps had no plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind and the people were forced to sleep under tarpaper-covered frames.

Thousands of people were fed in mess halls with limited allotments of food.

Some internees died from lack of medical health care and the high level of stress they faced while living in these camps.

There were internees of all ages at the camps and conditionally it was worst for the older generations and the younger generations.

Half of the camp’s population was made up of children.

Some internees were confined to the walls of the internment camps for up to four years.

In 1944 President Roosevelt rescinded the Executive Order 9066, closing the ten internment camps.

The end of 1945 closed the last internment camp.

It was not until 1968 that the government began to consider and fix the damages done to Japanese Americans for the property they had lost.

U.S Congress passed legislation in 1988, which provided formal payments of $20,000 to each of the surviving internees, which were 60,000 people.