American internment of Japanese (beginning c. 1942)

Following America’s entry into the Second World War, there was an executive order issued by President Roosevelt on 19 February 1942 that all Japanese nationals and all Americans of Japanese descent were to be interned away from the Pacific coast. This internment lasted until the end of the war in 1945 and affected around 120,000 people, of whom around 75,000 were American citizens. Most internees were not allowed to retain their property and often had to sell it off for small amounts, leaving many internees impoverished upon release.

The order for the internment of Japanese nationals was fairly standard, with similar orders being issued for the internment of German and Italian nationals, but the internment of American citizens on the basis of descent was exceptional. Many Americans along the Pacific coast felt that Japanese-Americans were untrustworthy and would choose Japan over the USA. The Pacific coast was seen as vulnerable to sabotage because of the potential of a Japanese naval invasion and because of the concentration of vital military industries in cities along the Pacific coast. Removing the Japanese from the Pacific coast and into the interior would protect those facilities from sabotage by Japanese agents.

The concern about Japanese-Americans constituting a ‘fifth column’ comes from an intense anti-Asian racism in the West, particularly in California. Chinese immigration to the USA had been banned since 1882 and Japanese immigration was essentially prohibited under the quota system imposed in 1924. Japanese and other Asians were seen as driving down wages, competing for scarce resources, and threatening the identity of the USA as a ‘White nation’. As a result of these preexisting racist tensions, many residents of the Pacific coast already wanted the Japanese gone from their communities, in part to seize their land and businesses for themselves. These racist motivations explain why US politicians from the West were so quick to suggest the internment of the Japanese and why it was extended to American citizens as well as enemy aliens.