Japanese American internment

Japanese American Internment
Manzanar internment camp for Japanese Americans
Operation
Period	February 1942 – June 30, 1946
Location	United States
Cause	Attack on Pearl Harbor; Niihau Incident; racism; war hysteria[1]
Most camps were in the Western United States.
Total	Over 110,000[2][3] Japanese Americans, including over 66,000 U.S. citizens,[4] forced into internment camps
Deaths	1,862 from all causes in camps[5]

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 had been 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 rumors 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, but did not say anything.^[6]

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."^[7]

1. ↑ 100th Congress of the United States (April 10, 1987). "S. 1009". Internment Archives. Archived from the original on September 20, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
2. ↑ Cite error: The named reference jachronology was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
3. ↑ Cite error: The named reference daniels was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
4. ↑ Cite error: The named reference citizens was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
5. ↑ Fiset, Louis. "Medical care in camp". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
6. ↑ "Children of the Camps - VIEWER'S GUIDE TO PRINT". pbs.org. Retrieved November 10, 2010.
7. ↑ Dorothy Swaine Thomas and Richard Shigeaki Nishimoto. The Spoilage, University of California Press, 1974. p. 20