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After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, anti- Japanese sentiments swept across the nation. In consequence, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized Japanese relocation. Both resident aliens from Japan and American citizens of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forced to abandon their homes. In the next 6 months, approximately 122,000 men, women, and children were moved to assembly centers.1 They were then evacuated to and confined in isolated, fenced, and guarded relocation centers, known as internment camps.2 Nearly half of these Japanese Americans were children, and they were incarcerated for up to four years. In some cases these children were even separated from their other family members. This put the survival of Japanese Americans and their children in uncertainty, as they faced a tentative future.
The picture above depicts the crowded conditions men, women, and children faced in all ten of the internment camps across the nation. Both children and adults were herded away from their homes like wild animals and placed into these camps, where they were under constant military surveillance. Camp designs were based on military barracks, making them ill suited for family living. In many cases, entire families were forced to crowd into a single one-room cell. Children were also forced to wear a tag inscribed with the ID number that the United States Army had assigned their family. However, most Japanese Americans tried to make their lives in the camps as “normal” as possible. For instance, schools were established for the educational needs of the children and adults were sent to work every morning. Children living in the barracks still managed to have fun and stay occupied by digging pools, writing letters, building baseball diamonds, and creating rock gardens. This caused the traditional structure of the Japanese family, with its emphasis on close bonds and respect for elders, to be undermined by the camps' informal social environment, where children could play for hours.3
Two and a half years after FDR issued Executive Order 9066, he retracted it and the government began reparations to Japanese Americans for property they had lost. However, the Japanese suffered an intangible loss that could not be regained. They lost faith in their government as they were humiliated and called traitors in their own country, and prejudice continued to run rampant, even years afterwards. The Japanese internment has come to serve as a “model of community survival in the face of adversity, as well as a cautionary tale of the dangers of unfettered authority, and of the fragility of human rights”.4
1 “Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese (1942).” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=74.
2Takei, George. “We Japanese Americans Must Not Forget Our Wartime Internment”. Last modified April 27, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/27/we-japanese-americans-wartime-internment.
3 “DENSHO: The Japanese American Legacy Project .” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.densho.org.
4Library of Congress. “Japanese Immigration.” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/alt/japanese5.html.
The picture above depicts the crowded conditions men, women, and children faced in all ten of the internment camps across the nation. Both children and adults were herded away from their homes like wild animals and placed into these camps, where they were under constant military surveillance. Camp designs were based on military barracks, making them ill suited for family living. In many cases, entire families were forced to crowd into a single one-room cell. Children were also forced to wear a tag inscribed with the ID number that the United States Army had assigned their family. However, most Japanese Americans tried to make their lives in the camps as “normal” as possible. For instance, schools were established for the educational needs of the children and adults were sent to work every morning. Children living in the barracks still managed to have fun and stay occupied by digging pools, writing letters, building baseball diamonds, and creating rock gardens. This caused the traditional structure of the Japanese family, with its emphasis on close bonds and respect for elders, to be undermined by the camps' informal social environment, where children could play for hours.3
Two and a half years after FDR issued Executive Order 9066, he retracted it and the government began reparations to Japanese Americans for property they had lost. However, the Japanese suffered an intangible loss that could not be regained. They lost faith in their government as they were humiliated and called traitors in their own country, and prejudice continued to run rampant, even years afterwards. The Japanese internment has come to serve as a “model of community survival in the face of adversity, as well as a cautionary tale of the dangers of unfettered authority, and of the fragility of human rights”.4
1 “Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese (1942).” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=74.
2Takei, George. “We Japanese Americans Must Not Forget Our Wartime Internment”. Last modified April 27, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/27/we-japanese-americans-wartime-internment.
3 “DENSHO: The Japanese American Legacy Project .” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.densho.org.
4Library of Congress. “Japanese Immigration.” Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/alt/japanese5.html.