Internet camps

Internet camps

 Following the attack on Pearl Harbour, US citizens started to dislike Japanese people.

While the government planned a revenge in terms of a military strike, the American public started to discriminate against Japanese people living in the US.

The US government now faced a few problems:

• Increased violence against anyone who looked Asian or of Asian descent was a social problem.

• Many people in the US feared that another Japanese attack was coming and were afraid that Japanese people living in the US were spies plotting an attack on the US mainland.

• They could not force deportation of Japanese people because a lot of them were US citizens that had rights to protect them from discrimination.

So how do they ensure the safety and security of the USA and also protect Asian people from discrimination? 

Internment Camps

1942 - President Roosevelt ordered the building of 10 internment camps.

These were also known as War Relocation camps and the idea was to remove Japanese people from normal society and have them living in supervised camps.

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110 000 people were moved to these camps on short notice.

Families got very basic, small pre-fab houses to live in, with communal dining areas and ablutions.

If they did anything that could be seen as suspicious they were then questioned by the US army.

They were not actively punished for being Japanese, but they were not treated well either.