Summer 2022
Japanese Internment Camps Established during World War II, the Japanese internment camps were created as result of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These internment camps forcefully relocated thousands of Japanese Americans, including U.S. citizens, and incarcerated them in isolated camps between the years 1942 and 1946. The formation of Japanese internment camps, also referred to as concentration camps, were a direct result of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. War Department alleged that Japanese Americans could act as spies for the Japanese government and therefore justified relocating them into internment camps. In March 1942, the U.S. government formed the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA). The mission of WRA was to, “ take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war .”
The Japanese internment camps caused incredible amount of hardship for Japanese Americans. The conditions in the camp were not healthy. Most internees faced monetary and property losses. There have been recorded cases of violence occurring in the internment camps. In 1946, the last Japanese internment camp was closed. However, Executive Order 9066 was not officially repealed until 1976 by President Gerald Ford. The younger generation of Japanese Americans in 1960s joined the efforts nationwide during the civil
rights movement and began the “Redress Movement” which called for an apology and reparations by the U.S. federal government. In 1988, a formal apology was issued by the Congress which passed the Civil Liberties Act and awarded over 80,000 Japanese Americans with $20,000 as reparations for their treatment. Japanese internment camps resulted in the egregious treatment of Japanese Americans and remains till date one of the most blatant violations of American civil rights.
Discrimination Faced by AANHPI People AANHPIs have been migrating to the United States of America since the mid-nineteenth century. Their history is fraught with discrimination, mistreatment, and harassment. This continues in the present day with the rise in hate crimes against AANHPIs in recent years. To understand the present circumstances, it is important to note AANHPI history.
industry. Chinese immigrants were hired to construct American’s first Transcontinental Railroad after receiving very few responses from white laborers to the jobs advertised. From 1865 to 1869, Chinese migrants worked at a breakneck pace in dangerous working conditions to complete construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Many workers died from accidents and diseases at this time due to being paid lower wages than white laborers and being made to do the most dangerous tasks. Additionally, historical sources inform us that these laborers also were at times physically abused by their supervisors.
The first group of Asian migrants who arrived in significant numbers to the United States were Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800s. These Chinese immigrants arrived first to work in the gold mines. They subsequently went on to do take jobs in the agricultural sector, factories, and garment
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