Lives Affected

Life Before The Internment :

For most Japanese-Americans, life was the same as it was for any American with a different ethnic background. They went to schools, worked and spent time with family and friends. Although life was never particularly easy for Japanese-Americans altogether because of the *Alien Land Law which was passed in 1913.

*Alien Land Law-Passed in 1913 by California. The law prohibited aliens ineligible to citzenship, (All Asian-Americans- including Japanese) and from owning land or property, but instead permitted 3 year leases on land and property.

Life During The Internment :

"Imagine that one day you received notice that you and your family must be ready to move within 48 hours. You could only take the possessions you could carry and no one would tell you when you would be permitted to return home."-Martha Daly

Life in Japanese Internment camps was not pleasant. When the United States placed the Japanese-Americans in internment camps, the people were taken away from their homes, a majority of their possessions and the people they loved. The camps, officially known as "relocation centers" became labeled as America's Concentration Camps simply because the United States had no idea at the time that they were acting similarly to the Nazis and their brutal treatment of the Jews. The camps were fenced and in each camp there were block arrangements. Each block contained 14 barracks, 1 mess hall and one recreational hall on the outside.

-A Japanese Family in a typical camp room and the outside of a barrack.

On the inside of a block, there was a place for ironing and male and femalve lavatories. Other places in the camp included dry and cold warehouses, a car and repair storage space, an administration building, schools, religious services, hospitals and a post office. One of the main hardships of the camps was the unbearably hot temperatures of the desert region (Average temperature was over 100 degrees) and the brutal winters with temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees.

Life After The Internment :

"Finally getting out of the camps was a great day. It felt so good to get out of the gates and just to know you were going home...finally."- Aya Nakamura (November 18, 2000)

-Japanese Family After the Internment

When the Japanese were allowed out of the camps, the majority of the population went back to the Pacific Coast. They started over with new lives and tried to forget about the painful ordeals they had just undergone. Since most of the Japanese lost their land when they were brought to the camps, they tried to regain the land after leaving the relocation centers. In 1948, Congress agreed to pay for some of the property lost. The beginnings to Congress's form of an apologiy was by giving Japanese-Americans less than 10 cents a day for each dollar that had been lost from land and property. Eventually, the Japanese began to lead normal lives again, although many had trouble obtaining work, keeping jobs and getting loans. After several years, farms were started by the Japanese-Americans and the they were able to buy new homes for their families. However, some Japanese-Americans were ruined for life, emotionally and financially and today are suing to be paid back what their families had lost. This is the price that racism costs.