Japanese-American Internment

In the aftermath of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent war with Japan, Americans were paranoid that there were Japanese spies posing as citizens.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 — two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor — which created internment camps designed to detain “all persons of Japanese ancestry.” Over 120,000 Japanese-Americans were sent to the camps, even though 70,000 of them were citizens. German and Italian-Americans met a similar fate, although there were only 14,000 in total sent away.

After two years of living in barracks surrounded by barbed wire, the program was cancelled in December 1944. Although Roosevelt was known for his brilliant leadership during the Great Depression and the Second World War, this was not one of his finest moments.