Japanese American Internment: The Economic Consequences

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United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt once proclaimed that the Pearl Harbor bombings that took place on December 7th, 1941 is, “ a date which will live in infamy.” The events that unfolded that fateful morning not only resulted in a U.S declaration of war against Japan the next day (subsequently promoted Germany/Italy to declare war against U.S three days later), but also proved to be a traumatic landmark event in the history of Japanese Americans. The aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombings prompted Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize Executive Order 9066 on February 19th, 1942, which consequently cleared they way for Japanese American internment. In Hawaii, where Japanese Americans made up one-third of the population, only 1200 to 1800 were interned. On the mainland (specifically the West Coast) over 100,000 Japanese Americans were interned. Despite widespread outcry in Japanese American communities, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these exclusion orders in the 1944 landmark case Korematsu v. United States. The horrors of internment continued until January 2, 1945 when the exclusion order was nullified, and in 1946 the last internment was closed. Despite being released the hardships and material loss suffered by Japanese American internees were far from over. Many internees who survived this traumatic ordeal not only suffered from psychological problems, but also lost their properties and incomes. Although the U.S. government issued a public apology and compensated surviving former internees under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, it is still unclear if this adequately compensates former internees for the long-term economic hardships that followed as a result of internment.

An estimated 110,000 Japanes...

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...oney can bring back deceased family members or reverse the deep psychological scars that remain with some for the rest of their lives. The internment of Japanese Americans in the end teaches us that, “we are all people, no matter what color or race.”

Bibliography

1. “Life after the nightmare.” Oracle ThinkQuest, 2011. Web. .

2. Chin, Aimee. “Long-Run Labor Market Effects of Japanese American Internment.” Houston: Department of Economics, University of Houston, 2004. 1-25. Print.

3. Rawls, J. J., & Bean, W. (2008). California: An Interpretive History (9th ed., pp. 189-276). San Francisco, CA: McGraw Hill.

4. Wright, Steven. “The Civil Liberties Act of 1988.” Dartmouth Education, n.d. Web. .

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