Executive Order 9066 being posted -Image Source

While many people are familiar with the Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, Gulags in the USSR, and POW camps, not many people are familiar with the internment of people of Japanese descent in the United States. The internment was a result of many factors, but was mostly due to the hysteria of the American people following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ironically, the only people who were charged with spying for Japan were not of Japanese descent (History on the Net).

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the catalyst for a series of events leading up to the internment of people of Japanese descent. Leading to Executive Order 9066, which forced the mass migration of those people into Assembly Centers, then Internment Camps.

Prior to the issuance of Executive Order 9066, the U.S. War Department “created 12 restricted zones along the Pacific coast and established nighttime curfews for Japanese American within them" ( Britannica ).

After the order was issued, many people were forced to leave in as short as 2 days to a maximum of 2 weeks, and were told to only bring what they could carry. Families were forced to sell off their businesses, homes, pets, and other personal belongings that could not be carried. Or if possible, leave belongings to the care of others that they trusted. Which in many cases, ended up in betrayal.

Out of the roughly 117,000 people of Japanese descent, two thirds were born American ( National Archives ).

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