Japanese Internment

1
Japanese Internment
1942-1945
2

• Following the attack on
• Pearl Harbor on
• December 7, 1941, why do you think many
  Americans were suspicious of Japanese Americans?

3

• Many people were afraid that Japanese Americans
  that lived
• on the West Coast might be
• acting as spies helping
• Japan attack the U.S.
• Many Japanese Americans were fishermenWhat
  might this mean?

HOWEVERThere was NEVER any evidence that
Japanese Americans acted as spies during WWII.
4
Relocation

• On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt
  issued Executive Order 9066. This forced
  Japanese Americans to move from their homes to
  internment camps.
• This was to keep them from spying by
  monitoring their lives.
• Yellow Peril became rampant throughout the U.S.

5

• 11,000 Japanese families had to sell their homes
  and businesses to relocate to these camps.
  Evacuees were allowed to take only what they
  could carry. What they couldnt sell was just
  left for the taking.

6

• Japanese Americans were put on buses and shipped
  to one of 10 relocation centers around the
  United States.

7
The barracks were surrounded by barbed wire and
overseen by high wooden watchtowers. Privacy was
almost nonexistent. Evacuees tried to make the
best of it by living their lives with some degree
of normalcy. Schools, libraries, sports teams,
churches, and Americanization classes were
created.
8

• Originally, FDR considered the relocation
  legal under constitutional powers granted to
  the president during times of war.
• The Supreme Court supported this claim in the
  case of
• Korematsu vs. U.S.
• Later, this was overturned and all camps were
  closed by early 1945.

But did these feelings just go away???
9
An Apology

• In 1988, the U.S. government apologized to
  Japanese Americans for these internment camps and
  paid all internees 20,000.

10

• Can you think of two Supreme Court cases that
  supported the issue of prejudice?

11
Answer

• Dred Scott- 1857
• The Supreme Court ruled that slaves are
  property, nullifying the Missouri Compromise
• Plessy vs. Ferguson- 1896
• The Supreme Court ruled separate but equal
  declaring segregation legal