Why were the Japanese Americans interned in 1942?

Question

Lucy Allen · Accepted Answer

There was already prejudice against the Japanese before that time.

Strong anti-Chinese immigration laws existed in the late 1800s; employers sought Japanese laborers when Chinese immigration was prohibited; as early as 1893, California attempted to establish segregated schools for Japanese children, to which the Japanese government objected. Many Americans would find it difficult to distinguish between Japanese and Chinese immigrants. In 1906, California successfully established segregated Japanese schools; in 1913, Japanese land purchases were outlawed in California. Japan was persuaded to stop issuing laborer passports by 1907, and most Japanese immigrants were prohibited from entering the country by an immigration law that was passed in 1924. Many Japanese immigrants went to work in Hawaii and California. Prejudice against Japanese people persisted in California. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii did not intern or remove a significant number of Japanese people from the Hawaiian Islands; those who were interned came primarily from California. Because there was a formal international standard for internment, internees were essentially treated like prisoners of war during the internment process; Japanese Americans were interned at a significantly higher rate than German Americans. Japanese Canadians were detained in large numbers in Canada. The wiki page for the internment of German Americans is here. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, has a history of Japanese Americans. The wiki article "Internment of Japanese Americans" can be found here.