Michael Burgan - Japanese American Internment

During World War II, people of Japanese ancestry were classified according to how long they had lived in the United States. Those who were born in Japan were called Issei. Their children who were born in the United States were called Nisei. Most Nisei were born before World War II. The grandchildren of the Issei, known as the Sansei, were mostly born during or after World War II. Some Japanese Americans born in the United States went to Japan for school and then returned to the United States. They were called Kibei.

Jeanne and her familyher father joined them after nine months in the prison campspent the next three years at the camp. They were not allowed to leave even though they had done nothing wrong. They were among nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were imprisoned during World War II. More than half of them were American citizens.

Many Americans who supported the internment genuinely feared a Japanese invasion of the United States, either in Hawaii or on the West Coast of the United States. At the time most people of Japanese ancestry lived in the western United States, with the largest concentration in California, Oregon, and Washington. Some U.S. leaders worried that people of Japanese ancestryeven those who were U.S. citizenswould be disloyal to the United States. They believed that sending Japanese Americans to the camps, where their actions could be watched and limited, was needed to protect national security.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor only fueled racism and prejudice against the Japanese. Anti-Japanese signs were a common sight after the attack.

the Japanese did.

The last Japanese Americans left the camps in 1946, more than six months after World War II ended. The years in the camps changed their lives forever. They also raised questions about the actions a nation should take during wartimequestions still debated today.

The Japanese werent the first Asian people to immigrate to the United States. Beginning in 1850, many Chinese men came to the United States to work in California gold mines. When the Gold Rush ended, many of them stayed in the United States. They were willing to perform dangerous jobs and work for lower wages than American citizens expected. In the 1860s Chinese workers played an important part in completing the transcontinental railroad between Omaha, Nebraska, and Sacramento, California. They also worked in laundries, on farms, and as servants. Some saved enough money to establish their own businesses and bring their families to the United States.

About 10,000 Chinese workers were brought in to work on the transcontinental railroad. They lived in makeshift camps right along the railroad.

In the 1870s, though, the United States had an economic slowdown. There was more competition for the fewer jobs that were available, and many Americans began to resent the Chinese immigrants because they would work for less. Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. It was the first U.S. law designed to keep immigrants out of a country. The Geary Act in 1892 extended the immigration ban for another 10 years.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was approved on May 6, 1882.

Japans leaders had closed their country to trade with western nations and visitors from them about 1600. Japan remained isolated from the West until 1853, when U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry traveled to Japan. On his second visit in 1854, Perry negotiated a treaty that allowed trade between Japan and the United States. This relationship eventually speeded immigration of Japanese people to the West. American businessman Eugene Van Reed brought about 200 Japanese people to the South Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam in 1868 to work on sugarcane plantations there. Hawaii was then an independent kingdom, and Guam was a Spanish colony. Both islands became U.S. territories in 1898.