Japanese Internment

On Feb. 19, 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, which forced tens of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese decent to relocate to internment camps. Leaving behind property, possessions and businesses, families were sent to one of 10 relocation centers and were restricted to unfavorable living conditions.

More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated, two-thirds of which were U.S. citizens. The internees were forced to live in tiny rooms, each family occupying a single room space — approximately 25 by 20 feet — and more than 250 people shared a single unit for bath, laundry and toilets. Some men were given the opportunity to leave the interment camps by joining the U.S. Army, however few decided to do so and about 1,200 opted to enlist.

It wasn't until 1944 that Roosevelt rescinded Executive Order 9066 and the last relocation camp was closed in March of 1946. After two-and-a-half years of living in camps, many of the internees went home to nothing, as the Japanese-descent evacuees left behind an estimated $200,000,000 worth of real, commercial and personal property, most of which they did not get back.

A question to ask would be whether this could happen again in the United States, knowing everything that we know now. With how much Japanese-Americans suffered and the degree in which most of them lost everything, it wouldn't be right for something like this to happen again. "Ethnic cleansing," is a serious thing and though the U.S. didn't go as far as genocide like Hitler did with the Jews, taking away the security that the internees once felt and the life they worked hard to get is also harsh.

I wouldn't doubt that something like this could happen again. Especially after the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, the level of fear that someone who doesn't look or think or act like you do makes other people do crazy things. I think with Obama as president, it might not happen in his term, but who's to say what can happen with other presidents in the future.