Share on Facebook
Tweet
In 1942, following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, the U.S. government began to place over 110,000 Japanese-Americans in "War Relocation Camps"–due to public concerns over the loyalty of these citizens. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 that would allow the exclusion of people with Japanese ancestry to reside on the Pacific coast. Persons of Japanese ancestry in these "exclusion zones" were placed in relocation centers. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were also placed in relocation camps–sometimes sharing the same facilities as Japanese-Americans.
Years later, President Jimmy Carter's 1980 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) reached a decision that these internment camps were not justified and the U.S. government paid reparations to survivors. Finally in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law an apology for these decisions and "failure of political leadership."
Scroll through our gallery below:
[slideshow gallery_id='2']