The Japanese Camps in California

by Mark Weber

In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast.

The FBI quickly began rounding up any and all "suspicious" Japanese for internment. None was ever charged with any crime. Almost all were simply Japanese community leaders, Buddhist or Shinto priests, newspaper editors, language or Judo instructors, or labor organizers. The Japanese community leadership was liquidated in one quick operation.

Men were taken away without notice. Most families knew nothing about why their men had suddenly disappeared, to where they were taken, or when they would be released. Some arrestees were soon let free, but most were secretly shipped to internment camps around the country. Some families learned what had happened to their men only several years later. The action also included the freezing of bank accounts, seizure of contraband, drastic limitation on travel, curfew and other severely restrictive measures. But this FBI operation merely set the stage for the mass evacuation to come.

In February 1942, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, requested authorization from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast area. On 19 February, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War or any military commander to establish "military areas" and to exclude from them "any or all persons. A month later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority, which eventually operated the internment camps. Roosevelt named Milton Eisenhower, brother of the future president, to head the WRA. More