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Asian Americans and U.S. Law
Section 5
half an hour + 3 links

Japanese Internment, part 1

Elizabeth Tanaka

In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt acted to purportedly prevent incidents of subversion and espionage from Americans1 of Japanese descent living in the United States. He issued two executive orders – one giving the Secretary of War the power to designate certain parts of the country "military areas" and exclude certain persons from them, and the other establishing the War Relocation Authority, which had the power to remove, maintain, and supervise persons who were excluded from the military areas.  The cases in this section demonstrate early efforts to challenge the mass exclusion, removal, and internment of Japanese Americans.

1 Approximately 70 percent of the 110,000-120,000 interned were American citizens.

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