Japanese American internment

**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. Many of the people who were sent to internment camps were 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  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, so they 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." A funeral home hung a sign saying "I'd rather do business with a Jap than an American."

## Internment starts 
In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order said that people who lived in some parts of the country could be taken out of those areas for any reason. While the order did not use the exact words "Japanese Americans", people knew that those were the people who would be taken out of those areas. The areas included all of California and the western parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. (See the area marked " zone" on the map on this page.) This was where most Japanese Americans lived at that time.

To keep Japanese Americans from leaving these areas on their own, the government stopped many of them from taking money out of their bank . This made it harder for them to move. 

Japanese Americans were given only 48 hours to leave for internment camps in other states. They were only allowed to carry one bag with them, and could not bring radios or cameras.

## Who was interned
In total, the United States forced over 110,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps.

About 80% of the Japanese-American people who lived in the continental United States were forced to leave their homes and live in internment camps. More than three out of every five of these people were born in the United States, and were United States citizens.

Most of the Japanese Americans who were interned lived in the continental United States. About 160,000 Japanese Americans lived in Hawaii, but only a little over 1,000 of them were interned. Because there were so many Japanese American people living in such a small territory, interning them would have been almost impossible. 

## Inside the camps 
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 ed 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 , 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.

 and very young children may have been more likely to get sick from the very hot and cold weather at the camps The people who were placed in the camps were given $25 and a bus ticket home. However, it would take more than 40 years for the government to apologize to Japanese Americans for what had happened. In 1988, the government apologized and paid a check $20,000 to people who had been sent to internment camps. However, some people had problems getting their checks. 

## Photo gallery

File:Posted Japanese American Exclusion Order.jpg|Official notice telling Japanese Americans they would have to leave their homes
File:Byron, California. Third generation of American children of Japanese ancestry in crowd awaiting the . . . - NARA - 537467.jpg|A group of American citizens waiting to get on a bus that will take them to an internment camp
File:JapaneseAmericanGrocer1942.jpg|A Japanese American grocer put up these signs just before his internment
File:Russell Lee, Tagged for evacuation, Salinas, California, May 1942.jpg|A young boy waits to be taken to an internment camp
File:Hayward, California. Friends say good-bye as family of Japanese ancestry await evacuation bus. Bag . . . - NARA - 537514.jpg|Friends say good-bye as a Japanese American family waits for a bus to an internment camp
File:Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Residents of Japanese ancestry, at the H . . . - NARA - 539235.jpg|Heart Mountain Relocation Center, in Wyoming
File:Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California. Harvesting spinach. - NARA - 538316.jpg|Growing spinach at Tule Lake Relocation Center, a high-security center for people who "caused problems"
File:San Francisco, California. Flag of allegiance pledge at Raphael Weill Public School, Geary and Buch . . . - NARA - 536053.jpg|Children say the Pledge of Allegiance while at school in an internment camp
File:442nd US Army RCT squad leader in france.jpg|Soldier in a mostly Japanese American U.S. Army regiment
File:Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. Not all the center residents will return to their form . . . - NARA - 539932.jpg|Graveyard at Granada Relocation Center in Colorado (1945)
File:Ronald Reagan signing Japanese reparations bill.jpg|U.S. President Reagan signs a law apologizing for internment and promising money to survivors (1988)
File:Manzanar shrine.jpg|A monument at Manzanar, "to console the souls of the dead" (2002)

## References 
## Other websites
*Colors of Confinement, photographs by Bill Manbo
*National Japanese American Memorial Foundation 
*Photograph collection from the University of Utah's Marriott Library 
*Smithsonian Education – Japanese American internment