page_title: Internment of Japanese Americans
section_title: List of camps
hierarchical_section_title: Internment of Japanese Americans / Facilities / List of camps
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: The full caption for this photograph reads: Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Allen Hagio, a former California artist, preparing a sign in the sign shop at the Rohwer Relocation Center, where former west coast residents are temporarily residing.
context_page_description: The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific Coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
  Of 127,000 Japanese Americans living in the continental United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 112,000 resided on the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei and Sansei. The rest were Issei immigrants born in Japan who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship under U.S. law.
  Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 112,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were forced into interior camps. However, in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned. The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans.
context_section_description: There were three types of camps. Civilian Assembly Centers were temporary camps, frequently located at horse tracks, where Japanese Americans were sent as they were removed from their communities. Eventually, most were sent to Relocation Centers, also known as internment camps. Detention camps housed Nikkei considered to be disruptive or of special interest to the government.
caption: Former California artist Allen Hagio preparing a sign at the Rohwer Relocation Center
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