Why internment camps were good

West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and transported to barren inland incarceration camps. Most spent the next three to four years behind barbed wire, surrounded by guard towers and deprived of their most basic constitutional rights.

There were no charges nor trials. None of those incarcerated was ever convicted of espionage, sabotage or crimes against the nation. In addition to losing their homes, jobs and businesses, these Japanese Americans lost their sense of place at the American table of citizenship. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute ». Despite this treatment, young Nisei — second-generation Japanese Americans — initially volunteered for and later were drafted into U.

Nearly a thousand died and nearly 10, were wounded or killed. In , the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians found that the incarceration was not based on military necessity, as federal officials claimed in In response, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of , which provided a presidential apology, individual monetary redress and a community trust fund. It was based solely on race….

How much clearer could the evidence be? Yet still some people see the incarceration as morally ambiguous and possibly even defensible. Now, with immigration-reform proposals targeting entire groups as suspect, it resonates as a painful historical lesson.

The roundups began quietly within 48 hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, The announced purpose was to protect the West Coast. They are a dangerous element, whether loyal or not. That February, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order , empowering DeWitt to issue orders emptying parts of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona of issei—immigrants from Japan, who were precluded from U.

Aizawa , Seiji. Interviewed with William McHorter. Personal Interview. Austin, Texas. December 15, Accessed on November 18, National Archives. Accessed November 15, Russel, Jan Jarboe. New York: Scribner, National Park Service, U.

Oral History. He was born in San Francisco, California, March of His parents came to America in to have a better life than what they had back in Japan, but they could not become citizens or own land because of the Oriental Exclusion Act. Next, he encouraged voluntary evacuation by Japanese Americans from a limited number of areas; about seven percent of the total Japanese American population in these areas complied.

Because of the perception of "public danger," all Japanese within varied distances from the Pacific coast were targeted.

Unless they were able to dispose of or make arrangements for care of their property within a few days, their homes, farms, businesses, and most of their private belongings were lost forever. From the end of March to August, approximately , persons were sent to "assembly centers" — often racetracks or fairgrounds — where they waited and were tagged to indicate the location of a long-term "relocation center" that would be their home for the rest of the war.

Nearly 70, of the evacuees were American citizens. There were no charges of disloyalty against any of these citizens, nor was there any vehicle by which they could appeal their loss of property and personal liberty. Incarceration rates were significantly lower in the territory of Hawaii, where Japanese Americans made up over one-third of the population and their labor was needed to sustain the economy.

However, martial law had been declared in Hawaii immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack, and the Army issued hundreds of military orders, some applicable only to persons of Japanese ancestry. In the internment camps, four or five families, with their sparse collections of clothing and possessions, shared tar-papered army-style barracks.

Most lived in these conditions for nearly three years or more until the end of the war.