The Chinese Exclusion Act and Asian Prejudices

Chinese workers had also been migrating to the United States, at first during the California Gold Rush in 1848 and then later to work on large projects like the Transcontinental Railroad. These Chinese immigrant workers were nearly all healthy adult men and provided a cheap labor source, at one point making up nearly a quarter of California's work force. Fueled by fears of immigration and racial prejudices, the federal government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned all immigration from China for ten years.

Ban on Japanese Migration

At first, the Japanese immigrants profited by the ban on Chinese laborers because it provided them with more jobs. However, eventually similar fears and prejudices would lead to a ban on new Japanese immigrants in 1924.

One effect of the ban was the creation of an unusually sharp divide between generations. There were the initial immigrants, the Issei, which included everyone who had moved from Japan to the United States before 1924. After 1924, the only new members of the Japanese American community were those born from Issei parents already within the United States. These of the second generation were called the Nisei, and they were very separate from their parents in terms of age, citizenship, and even English-speaking ability.

Attack on Pearl Harbor

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese Empire launched a surprise air attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many American battleships and aircraft were destroyed, and 2,403 Americans were killed.

Prior to the attack in 1937, Japan had aggressively invaded China and ignored the warnings sent by the League of Nations. In 1940, the Empire of Japan joined a treaty with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

While the United States had been assisting Britain and France in World War 2 with money and supplies, they did not enter the war until Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the U.S. immediately declared war on Japan, and then quickly entered the war against Germany and Italy as well.

Executive Order 9066 and Japanese Internment

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed and issued an executive order on February 19, 1942. This order allowed the U.S. government to set aside land for internment camps and led to the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.

Japanese Americans were viewed as foreigners and not "real" Americans. The FBI at the time reported that “It is said, and no doubt with considerable truth, that every Japanese in the United States who can read and write is a member of the Japanese intelligence system.” They were seen as potential enemies and a threat to the country

Fred Korematsu and the Supreme Court

Fred Korematsu was a Japanese American who refused to follow the orders of the U.S. Army under Order 9066 by refusing to be relocated to an internment camp. He was arrested and convicted, but claimed that the executive order was unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment requires someone to be convicted in a court of law if they are going to be imprisoned. His case was picked up by the U.S Supreme Court.

In the court case Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the executive order was, in fact, constitutional, and that the need to protect against espionage outweighed the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. Korematsu, along with the rest of the Japanese Americans, remained in the camps until the end of the war.

The Atomic Bombs and the End of World War II

On August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped the uranium atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and then three days later on August 9th they dropped the plutonium atomic bomb "Fat Man" on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The bombs immediately and completely destroyed the cities. Japan surrendered to the United States six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, putting an end to World War II. This remains the only use of nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

Following the end of the war, all of the Japanese internment camps were shut down by early 1946.

The Redress Movement and the CWRIC

Beginning in the 1960s, a younger generation of Japanese Americans, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, began what is known as the "Redress Movement".  This movement wanted an official apology and repayment from the federal government for incarcerating their parents and grandparents during the war. Instead of focusing on lost property, they based their arguments on the broader injustice and mental suffering caused by the internment. The movement's first success was in 1976, when President Gerald Ford proclaimed that the internment was "wrong," and a "national mistake" which "shall never again be repeated"

The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was established in 1980. This Congressional committee determined that the internment camps were unnecessary, unjust, and motivated by racism.

The Redress Movement and the CWRIC

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. It provided financial redress of $20,000 for each surviving detainee, totaling $1.2 billion. The question of to whom reparations should be given, how much, and even whether monetary reparations were appropriate were subjects of debate within the Japanese American community and Congress.

On September 27, 1992, an amendment to the Civil Liberties Act appropriating an additional $400 million to ensure all remaining internees received their $20,000 redress payments, was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. He issued another formal apology from the U.S. government on December 7, 1991, on the 50th-Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.