Background Information
-February 19th, 1942: Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in response to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor
-Executive Order 9066 allowed military leaders to designate areas in which certain groups of people could be excluded -Military commander in Western US disallowed Japanese-Americans from most of West Coast |
-110,000 Japanese Americans were interned
-65% were American citizens -35% were immigrants from Japan -87% of Japanese Americans were interned -Internees were held for an average of three years -Government did not distinguish between Nisei (Japanese-Americans born in America) and Isei (Japanese Americans born in Japan) -People with even 1/16 Japanese blood were subject to internment |
Civil Liberties Act of 1988
- signed by Ronald Reagan
-US realized that interment was "an act of injustice committed by the US government against a group of people based on race"
-granted reparations of $20,000 to every surviving former internee