After Pearl Harbor, fear of a Japanese attack or of sabotage on the West Coast ran high. Long-standing prejudice against Japanese immigrants added to it. Officials, newspapers and farm groups called for removing everyone of Japanese ancestry from the coast.
Key idea
Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942) led to the forced removal of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, to camps. The Supreme Court upheld the removal in Korematsu v. United States (1944). Congress apologized and paid redress in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
Why it works
Families had days to sell homes, farms and businesses, often at great loss, and could take only what they could carry. They went first to temporary "assembly centers," some in horse stalls at racetracks, then to ten camps run by the War Relocation Authority in deserts and swamps, behind barbed wire and guard towers. No Japanese American was ever convicted of spying or sabotage for Japan during the war. In Hawaii, where people of Japanese ancestry were a large part of the population, there was no mass removal. Thousands of young men from the camps served in the Army; the 442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most decorated unit of its size in the war.
Work it through
Worked example: Two cases on one day
On December 18, 1944, the Court decided Korematsu and Ex parte Endo. How did they differ?
- Korematsu upheld the exclusion from the West Coast, 6 to 3.
- Endo held that the government could not keep a loyal citizen in a camp.
- After Endo the camps began to close; the last closed in 1946.
Answer: Korematsu upheld removal; Endo ended detention of loyal citizens.
Common mistake
Many students think those incarcerated were mostly foreign nationals. About two-thirds were American citizens born in the United States. Most of the rest were immigrants whom federal law had barred from becoming citizens. In 1988 Congress apologized and paid 20,000 dollars to each surviving person.