page_title: Japanese American internment
section_title: Inside the camps
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese American internment / Inside the camps
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: The full caption for this photograph reads: Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry at this War Relocation Authority center.
context_page_description: Japanese American internment happened during World War II, when the United States government forced about 110,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and live in internment camps. These were like prisons. Many of the people who were sent to internment camps had been born in the United States.
  On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and declared war on the United States. Many Americans were furious, and some blamed all Japanese people for what had happened at Pearl Harbor. They spread rumors that some Japanese people knew about the attack ahead of time and had helped the Japanese military. The FBI and other parts of the United States government knew that these rumors were not true, but did not say anything.
  Japanese Americans began to feel that other Americans were becoming upset with them. For example, John Hughes, a man who read the news and listened to the radio in Los Angeles, California, spoke about Japanese Americans. There were reports of businesses that had anti-Japanese signs. For example, a barber shop put up a sign saying "Free shaves for Japs" and "not responsible for accidents."
context_section_description: There were three government agencies that ran camps. Ninety percent of the Japanese Americans were in camps run by the War Relocation Authority (WRA).  Only Japanese Americans lived in the WRA camps.  
  Ten percent of the Japanese Americans were in mixed-race camps.  These were either run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or the United States Army. Many different people were interned in INS and Army camps.  These people were included:
  German and Italian immigrants
  German Americans and Italian Americans
  Some refugees
  Commercial seamen from Germany and Italy whose ships were taken by the United States Navy, and passengers on those ships
  WRA camps were surrounded by barbed wire.  They were also guarded by soldiers who waited in watchtowers holding guns.
  Some people were shot. For example, James Wakasa, who stepped outside the barbed wire fence, was shot and killed. The guard who shot him said that Wakasa was trying to escape, but the Japanese Americans in the camp did not believe the guard.  Most of the camps were many miles away from the coast, and often in rural areas. Many of the camps were in the desert, which was uncomfortable for many of the Japanese Americans who were not used to that type of climate. This also meant that even if somebody escaped, there would be nowhere for them to go. 
  In the camps, people had to stand in line to eat or to go to the bathroom.
  One famous camp was Manzanar, which was in California.  Many Japanese from Los Angeles and San Francisco were sent there.  Other camps included Poston in Arizona and Minidoka in Idaho. There were a few camps outside of the western U.S., such as Jerome in Arkansas.  Japanese Americans were often crowded into small spaces, such as race tracks, before being sent to the camps.
  The camps tried to provide medical care.  Many of the people who worked in the camp hospitals were Japanese American doctors and nurses who lived in the internment camps.  However, there were not enough doctors and nurses, and not enough medical supplies.  Also, conditions at the camps helped cause some diseases.  For example:
  Because the camps were so crowded, infectious diseases spread easily.  These diseases included typhoid fever, smallpox, whooping cough, flu, diphtheria, and tuberculosis.  The camps could give vaccines to prevent some of these illnesses, like typhoid fever and smallpox, but not others.
  Bad sanitation caused outbreaks of food poisoning at many camps.
  At camps in the desert, there was so much dust that people with asthma and breathing problems got worse.
  At camps in Arkansas, people got malaria from mosquitoes.
  A total of 1,862 people died from medical problems while in the internment camps.  About one out of every 10 of these people died from tuberculosis.
caption: A grandfather and grandson at Manzanar.  The elderly and very young children may have been more likely to get sick from the very hot and cold weather at the camps[5]
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