Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part one War is a Terrible Thing!
- Part Two Guarding One’s Humanity During War: World War II
- 2 If Something’s Going to Get You, It’ll Get You
- 3 Prejudice, Bigotry, and Hatred. Love and Luck
- 4 Everything Went Downhill after that
- 5 In the Middle of a Hailstorm, One doesn’t Fear for One’s Own Life
- 6 Belonging to Something
- 7 Hard to Adjust After all that
- Part Three Other Voices, Other Wars: From Indochina to Iraq
- Part Four Civil Wars and Genocides, Dictators and Domestic Oppressors
- Part Five My Story, Your Choice How to Use it
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments by the Senior Author
- Index
7 - Hard to Adjust After all that
Grace, Interned Japanese-American Teenager
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part one War is a Terrible Thing!
- Part Two Guarding One’s Humanity During War: World War II
- 2 If Something’s Going to Get You, It’ll Get You
- 3 Prejudice, Bigotry, and Hatred. Love and Luck
- 4 Everything Went Downhill after that
- 5 In the Middle of a Hailstorm, One doesn’t Fear for One’s Own Life
- 6 Belonging to Something
- 7 Hard to Adjust After all that
- Part Three Other Voices, Other Wars: From Indochina to Iraq
- Part Four Civil Wars and Genocides, Dictators and Domestic Oppressors
- Part Five My Story, Your Choice How to Use it
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments by the Senior Author
- Index
Summary
America entered World War II after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii – not yet a state – on December 7, 1941. Concerned about invasion and terrorism on the part of Japanese living in the United States, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, empowering local military commanders to set aside “military areas” from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” In effect, Executive Order 9006 declared the entire Pacific coast off limits to people of Japanese ancestry. The only exemptions were internment camps. Approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans living along the Pacific coast and over 150,000 living in Hawaii (over one-third of Hawaii's population) thus were relocated and interned by the U.S. government in 1942. These Japanese-Americans – over 62% being U.S. citizens – were settled in what were called War Relocation Camps. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional legitimacy of the exclusion orders in 1944. Although it denied it for years, in 2007 the U.S. Census Bureau was found to have helped in this internment by giving confidential information on Japanese-Americans. It was not until 1988 that Congress passed legislation, signed by President Reagan, acknowledging and apologizing for the internment, admitting the internments were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” More than $1.6 billion of reparations were eventually disbursed to the internees and their heirs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Darkling PlainStories of Conflict and Humanity during War, pp. 116 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014