Michelle420
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History of Japanese/American internment camps after pearl harbor
From Citizen to Enemy: The Tragedy of Japanese Internment | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Children of the Camps: the Japanese American WWII internment camp experience
The day after the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, the US government froze assets of the Issei, and the FBI began to follow community leaders with strong Japanese ties. As American citizens, Issei and Nisei had enjoyed the rights of any US citizen; now their own government imposed strict curfews on them and raided their homes for “contraband”—anything that showed special connection to their former homeland.
Within two months President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the War Relocation Authority to force 110,000 Japanese and their American-born children into relocation camps. Internees relinquished their communities, homes, and livelihoods for cramped barracks in isolated interior areas of Arizona, Utah, California, Wyoming, Arkansas, Idaho, and Colorado. Officially, the government declared that the forced relocation was necessary for Japanese Americans’ safety. Unofficially, however, these citizens had become the enemy—and America had to be protected from them. There was widespread agreement that the Issei and Nisei needed to be removed from the coast where collusion with the Japanese was easy and, it was believed, likely
From Citizen to Enemy: The Tragedy of Japanese Internment | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Children of the Camps: the Japanese American WWII internment camp experience