CHAPTER 1 MISTAKEN FOR THE ENEMY on December 7 1941 Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii Japan was in the middle of fighting World War II 1939 1945 Japanese leaders thought the United States would soon enter the war They hoped a surprise attack would give Japan an advantage In 1941 thousands of Japanese Americans lived in the United States Immigrants born in Japan or the Issei could not become US citizens Smoke rises from destroyed battleships after the attack on Pearl Harbor 5
But most of the Issei’s children called the Nisei were born on US soil This made them US citizens After the attack many people in the United States accused Japanese Americans of siding with Japan In February (cid:157) (cid:143) US President Franklin D Roosevelt signed Executive Order (cid:144)œœ This order allowed the US military to move Japanese Americans who were living on the West Coast Any Japanese American in the exclusionary area would be forced to move to prison-like camps The government called them internment camps Internment is a process in which a country at war arrests and imprisons noncitizen enemies However the (cid:157)(cid:143)(cid:144),(cid:144)(cid:144)(cid:144) Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast were not arrested In this case the term internment is incorrect Instead many historians use terms 6
such as incarceration or confinement These terms better reflect the unjust nature of the camps Japanese Americans forced into confinement had only a few days to prepare They left behind homes schools and businesses Half of them were children and two-thirds were US citizens Even so their country treated them as enemies JAPANESE AMERICAN CONFINEMENT CAMPS 1942-1946 Tule Lake Heart Mountain Minidoka Topaz Manzanar Granada Poston Gila River Confinement camp Exclusionary area Rohwer Jerome W N S E 7
