Imprisoned For Their Blood
After Pearl Harbor, the government forced roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans — two-thirds of them citizens — into camps. None were charged with anything.
In 1942, by executive order, the United States rounded up about 120,000 people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast — most of them American citizens — and confined them in remote camps behind barbed wire. Their only offense was their ancestry.
The Order
Executive Order 9066 gave families days to sell their homes and businesses before being shipped to the camps, where many stayed for years. When it was challenged, the Supreme Court upheld it.
Two-thirds were citizens. None were charged.
The Apology
Decades later, a federal commission concluded the internment was driven by "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." The government formally apologized and paid reparations.
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It took the country more than forty years to call it what it was — and to say sorry.
You've Seen the File.
120,000 people imprisoned without charge for their ancestry. Wartime necessity, or a betrayal the country tried to bury?
Infamy — Richard Reeves
The authoritative, human account of the internment and the lives it shattered.
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