• What was the impact of WWII on the everyday life of the majority of Americans?

• In what ways did WWII contribute to the growth of the federal government? How did it foster what historians now call the “military-industrial complex” and the imperial presidency?

• How do you explain the decision to intern virtually all Americans of Japanese birth (Issei) or ancestry (Nisei)? Do you think the internment of a population could happen again today?

Japanese “Relocation”

• Racism before Pearl Harbor– Nativism

• Executive Order 9066– Feb 19, 1942

• 10 internment camps • 120,000 Japanese American relocated• 2/3 of internees were American citizens

• War Relocation Authority (WRA)

Japanese Internment:

Notification, Relocation, & Internment Photos

10 Internment Camps

Japanese American experiences

- “Relocation”/Internment Camps • Remote, barren lands, few belongings• Lost $2 billion in property and possessions

–Japanese Americans in military• 442nd infantry combat team—well decorated

–Challenges to internment• Korematsu case (1944)—internment is

constitutional• 1988—reparations paid to surviving internees

($20,000 each)

Notification

Relocation

Internment Camps