Outline of Japanese American Internment during World War II

This is a topical guide to articles about the history of the Japanese American internment during World War II.

During World War II, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in ten internment camps in the United States, operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens. These actions were initiated by Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, following Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

About 127,000 Japanese Americans then lived in the continental U.S., of whom about 112,000 were removed from the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei ('second generation'; American-born Japanese with U.S. citizenship) and Sansei ('third generation', the children of Nisei). The rest were Issei ('first generation') immigrants born in Japan, who were ineligible for citizenship. In Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only about 1,330 were incarcerated.

Most Japanese Americans were first held in temporary assembly centers, run by the Army's Wartime Civil Control Administration, before they were sent to internment camps in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas. The internees were prohibited from taking more than they could carry into the camps, and many of them were forced to sell either some or all of their property, including their homes and their businesses.

Overview Internment of Japanese Americans - (1942–1946) - The forced removal and imprisonment of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, by the United States government during World War II. List of Japanese-American internment camps - List of sites used to hold Japanese Americans, from temporary assembly centers and the ten War Relocation Authority camps.

Background World War II - Global conflict. Pearl Harbor (attack) - Beginning of the Pacific War, when the nation of Japan attacked military facilities in the Territory of Hawaii. Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States - Hostility toward Japanese immigrants and their American-born children. Alien and Sedition Acts - (1798) - Four statutes of 1798, used as the legal basis for interning Japanese, German and Italian nationals during the Second World War. FBI Index - The Bureau's card-file system for tracking people it considered dangerous. Munson Report - (1941) - Curtis B. Munson's twenty-five-page survey for the State Department, delivered to the White House on October 7, 1941, which found no Japanese problem on the West Coast and reported extraordinary loyalty among the people it examined. Roberts Commissions - (1941–1942) - Presidential commissions chaired by Justice Owen Roberts. Niʻihau incident - (December 7–13, 1941) - The week after Pearl Harbor, a downed Japanese pilot on the Hawaiian island of Niʻihau was helped by two residents of Japanese ancestry. Black Dragon Society - Japanese ultranationalist group founded in 1901. Pacific Movement of the Eastern World - (founded c. 1932) - African American movement, started in Chicago, that looked to Japan as a champion of non-white peoples; the FBI sought a grand jury investigation of it in 1942. Propaganda for Japanese-American internment - The newsreels, films and newspaper campaigns. Shikata ga nai - Japanese phrase meaning "it cannot be helped," associated with how the incarcerated generation described enduring the camps.

Enactment and administration Executive Order 9066 - (February 19, 1942) - Roosevelt's order, the legal foundation for the internment. Executive Order 9102 - (March 18, 1942) - Created the War Relocation Authority; Truman terminated it on June 26, 1946. War Relocation Authority - (1942–1946) - The civilian agency that ran the ten main camps. Western Defense Command - (1941–1946) - Army command responsible for Pacific Coast defense. Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement Study - (1942–1948) - Berkeley research project directed by sociologist Dorothy Swaine Thomas that tracked removal, camp life and resettlement.

Places Assembly centers Camp Harmony - (May–September 1942) - Puyallup, Washington Fresno Assembly Center - (May–October 1942) - Fresno, California Merced Assembly Center - (May 6 – September 15, 1942) - Merced, California Pomona Assembly Center - (May 7 – August 24, 1942) - Pomona, California Portland Expo Center - (May 2 – September 10, 1942) - Portland, Oregon Salinas Sports Complex - (April 27 – July 4, 1942) - Salinas, California Santa Anita Assembly Center - (March 27 – October 27, 1942) - Arcadia, California Tanforan Assembly Center - (April–October 1942) - San Bruno, California Tuna Canyon Detention Station - (December 1941 – October 1943) - Tujunga, California Sharp Park Detention Station - (1942–1946) - Pacifica, California

Internment camps Gila River War Relocation Center - (July 1942 – November 1945) - Gila River Indian Reservation, Pinal County, Arizona Granada War Relocation Center - (opened August 1942) - near Granada, Colorado, Prowers County Heart Mountain Relocation Center - (August 1942 – November 1945) - between Cody and Powell, Park County, Wyoming Jerome War Relocation Center - (October 1942 – June 1944) - near Jerome, Arkansas, Chicot and Drew counties Manzanar - (March 1942 – November 1945) - Owens Valley, Inyo County, California Minidoka National Historic Site - (1942–1945) - near Eden, Idaho, Jerome County, Idaho Poston War Relocation Center - (June 1942 – 1945) - Colorado River Indian Reservation, La Paz County, Arizona (then Yuma County) Rohwer War Relocation Center - (September 1942 – November 1945) - near McGehee, Arkansas, Desha County Topaz War Relocation Center - (September 1942 – October 1945) - near Delta, Utah, Millard County Tule Lake War Relocation Center - (May 1942 – March 1946) - Newell, California, Modoc County Manzanar Children's Village - (June 1942 – September 1945) - within Manzanar, Inyo County, California Poston Elementary School, Unit 1, Colorado River Relocation Center - (1940s) - Poston, Arizona, Colorado River Indian Reservation

Other Crystal City Internment Camp - (1943–1948) - Crystal City, Texas - Justice Department family camp for Japanese, German and Italian families, including Latin American deportees; 3,374 at its peak Fort Lincoln Internment Camp - (from April 1941) - Bismarck, North Dakota - Army post converted for enemy aliens; some 3,600 prisoners passed through Fort Missoula Internment Camp - (1941–1944) - Missoula, Montana - Held nearly 1,100 Italian and over 1,000 Japanese civilians Honouliuli National Historic Site - (1943–1946) - near Waipahu, Oahu - Hawaii's largest and longest-running camp, holding civilians and POWs Japanese internment at Ellis Island - (1941–1945) - Ellis Island, New York - Immigration station where New York's Japanese residents were held after Pearl Harbor Kilauea Military Camp - Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, Hawaiʻi - Army post holding Japanese internees and POWs in the 1940s Kooskia Internment Camp - (1943–1945) - Idaho County, Idaho - Labor camp where 250+ Japanese men built what became U.S. Route 12 Camp Livingston - (1940–1945) - near Pineville, Louisiana - Army post holding 800–1,100 Japanese American civilians alongside POWs Camp Tulelake - (1935–1946) - near Tulelake, California - Former CCC camp holding loyalty-questionnaire resisters, strikebreakers, then Axis POWs Dalton Wells Isolation Center - (1942–1943) - north of Moab, Utah - WRA isolation center for men labeled troublemakers, many from Manzanar Leupp, Arizona - (1943) - Navajo Nation, Arizona - Former boarding school used as an isolation center; its last 52 men were sent to Tule Lake Catalina Federal Honor Camp - (1939–1951) - Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson - Fenceless prison camp holding 46 Japanese American men, mostly draft resisters, and Gordon Hirabayashi Seagoville, Texas - near Dallas, Texas - Women's reformatory used for Japanese, German and Italian internees and Latin American deportees; up to 647 held

Life in internment camps Buddhist Temple of Chicago - (founded October 1944) - Founded by Rev. Gyomay Kubose with recently released prisoners. Cleveland Buddhist Temple - (founded 1944) - Jodo Shinshu congregation founded by resettlers in Cleveland. Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee - (1943–1944) - Draft resistance group; 85 men convicted, pardoned in 1947. Lordsburg killings - (July 27, 1942) - Guard shot two elderly internees, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, in the back; he was acquitted of manslaughter. Manzanar Guayule Project - (begun April 1942) - Rubber research program run by prisoners at Manzanar. Manzanar Riot - (December 5–6, 1942) - Military police fired on protesters, killing two. Minidoka Irrigator - (September 1942 – July 1945) - Camp newspaper at Minidoka. Renunciation Act of 1944 - (July 1, 1944) - Allowed wartime renunciation of citizenship on U.S. soil; used mainly at Tule Lake. Santa Fe riot - (March 12, 1945) - Guards attacked internees protesting three transfers, badly injuring four. Seabrook Buddhist Temple - (founded winter 1945) - Built by Japanese American workers at Seabrook Farms. Seabrook, New Jersey - Farming community where nearly 3,000 Japanese Americans resettled after the camps. Topaz Times - (September 1942 – August 1945) - Camp newspaper at Topaz.

Legal challenges Hirabayashi v. United States - (1943) - Upheld Gordon Hirabayashi's conviction for violating the curfew on people of Japanese ancestry. Yasui v. United States - (1943) - Companion ruling affirming that the curfew applied to citizens; Minoru Yasui's conviction upheld. Korematsu v. United States - (1944) - 6–3 ruling upholding Fred Korematsu's conviction for defying exclusion; repudiated in Trump v. Hawaii (2018). Ex parte Endo - (1944) - Unanimous ruling that the government could not detain a citizen it conceded was loyal. Hirabayashi v. United States (1987) - (1987) - Ninth Circuit vacated Hirabayashi's wartime convictions after the government's suppression of evidence came to light. Mochizuki v. United States - (1998–1999) - Class action by interned Japanese Latin Americans; settled for $5,000 each and a presidential apology. Japanese-American Claims Act - (1948) - Property loss compensation; ~23,000 claims settled for roughly $38 million of $131 million claimed.

People Karl Bendetsen - (1907–1989) - Army officer who drafted the removal plan and is generally named its architect Clara Breed - (1906–1994) - San Diego librarian who wrote to the children of her branch throughout their incarceration and lobbied on their behalf Ralph Lawrence Carr - (1887–1950) - Colorado governor who defended Japanese Americans' rights and welcomed them to his state, at the cost of his career Wayne M. Collins - (1899–1974) - San Francisco lawyer whose 23-year campaign restored the citizenship of the Tule Lake renunciants John L. DeWitt - (1880–1962) - General commanding the Western Defense Command, who issued the exclusion orders Milton S. Eisenhower - (1899–1985) - First director of the War Relocation Authority, who resigned after ninety days Mitsuye Endo - (1920–2006) - Her habeas petition won the ruling that the government could not hold citizens it conceded were loyal Bob Emmett Fletcher - (1911–2013) - Agricultural inspector who farmed three interned families' vineyards and handed back their share of the profits Julius Goldwater - (1908–2001) - Buddhist priest who safeguarded families' property, visited all ten camps and opened hostels for those returning Peter Irons - (born 1940) - Legal scholar whose archival research uncovered the suppressed evidence that reopened the wartime cases