During the era of world war II many Asian communities, especially the Japanese, were unfairly treated and placed into camps, in large part of their ancestry. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Navy spiked an already negative view of Asian Americans and immigrants. This led the U.S. Government to force a mass relocation of the Asian population into internment camps that were along the Pacific coast. The rationale that was used to implement the relocation of thousands of Japanese-American citizens was that they were all at security risk of spying (Dudley 13). Yet was that the only reason they had for placing citizens in isolated camps for a long time? Given the previous history that the U.S. has had with other Asian communities, let alone Japanese, that have migrated over it is quite possible that the main factor which led to the internment camps, was caused by a nasty and racist view that has grown even long before Pearl Harbor. America has had a long and nasty history when comes to the treatment of non-white ethnic groups and when we were at war with a country that was made up of a particular ethnic group that was being discriminatory treated in west coast states for taking ‘jobs and land’ many saw in the opportunity to put them a situation that would have traumatic effects later on.
Japanese citizens began migrating to the U.S. in the 1880s in large part of the shortage of jobs in agriculture it was experiencing thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was enacted to stop the flow of immigrants from China (Ivey and Kaatz 18). Although most of the employment was in Hawaii, many Japanese started to head to the West Coast upon hearing stories that gold was found (Ivey and Kaatz 18). Thinking that they could get a quick cash grab, anti-Chinese movements started to take notice of the increase of Japanese coming over and decided to move their attention to the Japanese since most of the Chinese were kicked out (Ivey and Kaatz 18). Many organizations were starting to form to specifically pressure California to pass anti-Japanese laws as they did with the Chinese (Ivey and Kaatz 20). In 1906, there was an uproar when news broke that Japanese children were sitting in the same classroom as white children in San Francisco (Ivey and Kaatz 20). The Board of Education move all Asian students to a single public school because of the outrage (Foner 751). The Japanese Government protested upon hearing what the board did (Foner 751). President Theodore Roosevelt managed to convince the board to rescind the order and negotiated the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with the Japanese Government to stop people from Japan from coming over, except wives and children of men already here (Foner 751). California would continue passing undermining laws on Japanese people by passing the Alien Land Act, which prevented people that couldn’t naturally become a citizen from owning or leasing land (Foner 751).
All of these issues started way before Japan militarized and was capable of launching on the United States. The hostility the Japanese inherited from the Chinese led to many racial conflicts and though it wasn’t as vicious as the treatment of Afriacan-Americans. The Japanese struggled pretty badly and were very valuable to segregation and lacrimatory laws thanks to the Naturalization Act that prevented them from becoming U.S. citizens and receiving some forms of protection (Foner 792).
By 1941, The Japanese-American population in the U.S. was around 125,000, The majority of whom resided in west coast states like California, Oregon, and Washington (Dudley 13). An additional 150,000 live in Hawaii, which was just considered a U.S. territory instead of a state at that time (Dudley 13). The Majority of Japanese-Americans, that was on the West Coast, lived in California (Foner 877). The Japanese Community had two generational groups, the nisei, and the issei. The Nisei were the older generation that Immigrated to the U.S. The issei were larger and younger generations that were born in the U.S. and become citizens (Foner 877).
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After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans started to wonder how the strike on the Navy base was so successful. Accusations of espionage and sabotage quickly sprouted out toward Japanese Americans and immigrants (Dudley 14). Soon afterward federal agencies, like the FBI and Department of Justices, started doing raids and round-ups of “enemy aliens” that were Japanese, as well as German and Italian (Dudley 14). Political leaders like California’s Governor Culbert Olson began calling for the removal of all Japanese from the west coast (Dudley 14). Anti-Japanese settlement began to rise up more after an investigation, led by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, allegedly found that Japanese-Americans spied for the Japanese Government in Hawaii (Dudley 14). A month later, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which allowed the removal of Japanese descent from the west coast.
The reason why FDA signed order 9066 still doesn’t remain all that clear. It’s true that there was a great distrust and suspicion that Americans had towards Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, but there have been other speculations that the origin of the internment camps first started in the military on the West Coast. Before FDA sign the order, there were many unverifiable rumors about espionage going around in California that were making a lot of military leaders become paranoid that another attack like pearl harbor could happen very soon (Murray 30). Lieutenant General DeWitt, who was Chief of the Army’s Western Defense Command, was convinced by rumors and army personnel that Japan did indeed have spies among the Japanese community on the west coast and wrote a memo to the Secretary of War Henry Stimson that recommend the removal of all Japanese-Americans citizens and Aliens from the west coast (Dudley 14). Soon, most of the military leaders began to lean towards mass evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans. Surprisingly FDR didn’t exactly care much about the topic of moving Japanese-Americans and pretty much left the issue to the military leadership to decide on what to do (Robinson 120).
General DeWitt was appointed to oversee the relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps and was also given permission from Congress to move ones that were also citizens (Robinson 126). Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii however, couldn’t relocate their Japanese population since most of the economy depend on them to work in agricultural jobs (Robinson 120). Families in the states, however, were given about a week to report to assembly centers or face penalties (Ivey and Kaatz). Much of the housing for the assembly centers consisted of former horse stables, Makeshift shacks, and barracks that were surrounded by barbed wire (Foner 877). The construction of the camps was handled by a new division of the Department of Interior, called the War Relocation Authority (Ng 37). The camps were mostly put into isolated areas on federal land and were supposed to have put the camps in places where it would be suitable for large-scale farming since most of the Japanese-Americans were well experienced in agricultural Development, but it wasn’t (Ng 37). The assembly centers were eventually changed to relocation centers that were in or next to military bases for the purpose of being more suitable for long-term stays (Ng 39).
Life in the camps wasn’t exactly heavenly in the views of the Japanese-Americans. There were 6:45 roll calls each morning, armed guards would patrol the camps regularly, and privacy and medical facilities weren’t even a possibility anymore (Foner 877). They were at least allowed to be governed by themselves and had at least some control over how to live in the camps (Ng 44). The Japanese-American community tried to make the best of a bad situation. They tried their best to make the camps as homely as possible by decorating their living quarters with flowers, curtains, and pictures planting gardens, and setting up activities of sports and art (Foner 877). Though most of the residents tried to put some positivity to their prediction there would still be a sense of imprisonment in the camps.
Before they came to the camps, many Japanese-Americans had their own businesses or farms which they made money off of. Now that they were taking a long eve of absence from work, residents of the camps suddenly found themselves with a lot of free time on their hands. The WRA administration thought that providing the residents with a work or employment program was an important priority to meet (Ng 43). However, there were a couple of issues that made achieving this task rather complicated. One, the Japanese-American residents couldn’t leave the camps without the WRA approval, most of the areas of camps were in isolated areas, and there was very little incentive for residents to work for people that were holding them against their will. The WRA sought to make employment programs anyway and in Camp just south of Sacramento, called Manzanar, created a program for the residents to make camouflage nets for war production but floundered thanks to few signs ups, and also of the issue non-citizen residents being able to enter the facility (Ng 43).
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