User:Anniewink328/Internment of Japanese Americans

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Following Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, leading to the forced relocation and incarceration of over 125,000 people of Japanese decent in internment camps. This included both Japanese American citizens and non-citizens, who were deemed "enemy aliens" and were subject to detention under Presidential Proclamation 2525. The order authorized military commanders to create "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded," which resulted in the relocation of any persons deemed to be a national threat. The idea of Japanese Americans posing a threat to both national security and the personal safety of White Americans combined with the decades of racist fear of Asian immigrants ("yellow peril") led to the discrimination and removal of Japanese Americans receiving wide public support. However, there were individuals who opposed internment, believing it to be unethical and unconstitutional. Hawaiian businessmen believed it not to be in the best economic interest because of how many key workers were Japanese, resulting in legislation for the freedom of the vast majority of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.

Beginning in March of 1942, General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, began issuing a series of Civilian Exclusion Orders, declaring that "all persons of Japanese ancestry, including aliens and non-aliens" must evacuate various areas of the West Coast. Once these exclusion orders were issued, Japanese Americans in the affected areas were given a week to register with the authorities, liquidate their assets, and get rid of all the possessions that they couldn't carry with them, typically having to sell property considerably underpriced. They were relocated to makeshift assembly centers before being moved to more permanent internment camps. These remote desert camps had prison-like conditions, forcing several families to cram together in barracks or animal stalls with little to no privacy. The budgets for food were extremely low, and while camps met the minimum requirements set by international law, many lacked plumbing or cooking facilities, and medical care and education existed but both were lacking in terms of staffing and resources. Prisoners were held captive by barbed wire and armed guards who would shoot if anyone attempted to escape. The government eventually began accepting war volunteers from the camps, and 33,000 men and women served during the war, most of them in hopes of proving their loyalty as Americans and regaining the rights of citizens.

On December 17, 1944, Major General H. C. Pratt issued Public Proclamation No. 21 in response to knowledge of Korematsu v. United States and Ex parte Endo, two Supreme Court rulings that were to be announced the following day. The proclamation states that Japanese Americans would be allowed to return to their homes as of January 2, 1945, unofficially rescinding EO 9066. Korematsu v. United States ruled that EO 9066 was constitutional because the forced relocation of Japanese Americans was based on "military necessity" rather than racial exclusion, but didn't address the issue of incarceration. The Ex parte Endo decision ruled that the government could not detain citizens who were determined loyal from the 1943 Loyalty Questionnaire, a 28 question assessment of the "Americanness" of the detainees. Following this unofficial end to internment, all the camps were closed by the end of 1946, and the order was officially repealed by President Gerald Ford in February of 1976.

Following their freedom, Japanese Americans dealt with both the economic hardship from being previously forced to abandon their possessions and the emotional burdens of facing depression, hostility, and violence. The Japanese-American Claims Act was passed in 1948 to compensate for property losses, but it had limited success due to destroyed tax records. Starting in the 1960s, decedents of those who were incarcerated began the "Redress Movement," campaigning for official apologies and reparations for their parents and grandparents. Their first success was Ford's repeal of EO 9066, and over the next several years billions of dollars were given in reparations.

Many terms have been used to describe the camps, and great debate surrounds which is the most accurate to use. Technically, "interment camps" are for non-citizens, so it can only be used to describe a fraction of those held prisoner. "Relocation centers" was a frequently used euphemism that doesn't fully represent the weight of the injustices that took place. "Concentration camps," being legally defined as places that imprison people for their identity rather than for committing a crime, is the most accurate, but has a degree of controversy because of its associations with the Nazi concentration camps.