Japanese Concentration Camps in America

During World War II, Japanese Americans and Japanese aliens were moved to assembly centers then to internment camps in 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese American Internment was the relocation and internment of Japanese people forced by the United States government in 1942. Japanese and Japanese Americans(approximately 120,000) were forced to move into the "Wartime Relocation Camps"  of America. Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast at that time were mostly interned. However, Japanese Americans who lived in Hawaii, on the other hand, were not subject to mass evacuation. Out of the 150,000 Japanese people composed of one-third of the population, only 1,444 were sent to internment camps. According to Japanese American Internment Camps by Gail Sakurai, it was due to cultural and economic reasons: "There was no mass relocation and internment in Hawaii, where the population was one-third Japanese American. It would have been impossible to transport that many people to the mainland, and the Hawaiian economy would have collapsed without Japanese American workers. " 62% of the Japanese who were interned were American citizens. 

The Executive Order 9066, authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones."  The order required the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from California and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona.

Many Japanese families sold their homes, businesses, and belonging for lower prices due to the relocation. Some families were even separated during it. 

Japanese Americans fought for justice in the courts and in Congress. Though the initial result wasn't good, the Japanese American Citizens League(JACL) pushed the government to compensate for the loss of those Japanese Americans who were interned after the war. In 1965, the Congress authorized the spending of $38 million, which was less than a tenth of their actual losses.

In 1978, the JACL demanded for the payment of reparation to each individual who was interned. On August 10, 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, promising $20, 000 for every surviving former internee. The Act also apologized for the violation of constitutional right, provided a public educational fund to inform the public about the internment, and discouraged such violations of civil liberties in the future.