Why?
December 7th of 1941 marks the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. This attack created a mass hysteria amongst the US. The US instituted the Executive Order 9066, also known as the “Japanese internment order” to take action against the Japanese living in America by putting them into internment camps. Military areas were established to remove those areas of anyone who might threaten the war effort. The US justified their actions by claiming the Japanese race was spying for their fellow Japanese people; Roosevelt was not sure where Japanese Americans’ loyalty lied. Two thirds of those interned were American citizens and children, yet the government still thought internment was a just and constitutional action.
How?
Once the exclusion order was released, all of Japanese ancestry had as little as 48 hours to a week to pack up and bring minimal possessions. Since they could not take everything with them people preyed on them to sell their goods for lower prices than were offered. Over a hundred thousand citizens were ordered to go to control centers. where Japanese Americans were put on trains, buses, cars and trucks taking only what they could carry to one of ten internment camps. Often families were separated and camps were isolated with barracks and barbed wire surrounding them. The camps were guarded by military personal and each Japanese American over the age of 17 had to fill out a questionnaire regarding their loyalty to the United States.