Japanese Internment Camps?

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Question:

I'm doing a project on the internment camps, but I'm a little confused!. All the information I have been finding is portraying the camps as bad, but not as bad as I thought!. It says the people were forced out of there homes and had to live in small rooms and the emotional pain was unbearable, but did a large number of people actually die!? I've heard these camps be compared to the camps from the Holocaust, but were they that bad!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

No - very, very few people died, but yes, there was a great deal of emotional stress!. The camps could not begin to be compared to the Holocaust!. In some camps, there were individual houses for families, and in other camps accommodation had to be shared!. Yes, sometimes it was one family to a room, if it was a crowded camp, but recreational and educational facilities were available within the camp!. They had adequate food, and medical treatment!.
It wasn't a proud moment in our history, but the Japanese Canadians were not tortured, not killed, not starved!.
They were cheated of their homes and possessions and no reparations made up what they had lost economically or emotionally, but despite that, almost all remained in this country and recaptured their place in society!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

They were not in the same category as the Nazi Camps!. No gas chambers for inmates, no
tattoos on inmates, etc!.

Basically, it was just something to put people
into in isolated areas of the USA during WW2!.
It looked more like an army camp with barbed wire
surrounding the perimeter keeping everybody in!.

Many people did lose their homes and their
businesses!. And had no recourse to legal
avenue to get any financial compensation back!.

One of the people forced to live there was a
young boy name George Takei, who would
later became famous for the part of Mr!. Sulu
in the Star Trek TV series!.

- - - -Www@QuestionHome@Com

Not at all!. Comparing US Japanese Internment Camps to Nazi concentration and labor camps is like comparing after school detention to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was gripped by war hysteria!. This was especially strong along the Pacific coast of the U!.S!., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses!. Leaders in California, Oregon, and Washington, demanded that the residents of Japanese ancestry be removed from their homes along the coast and relocated in isolated inland areas!. As a result of this pressure, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the forcible internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry!. More than two-thirds of those interned under the Executive Order were citizens of the United States, and none had ever shown any disloyalty!. The War Relocation Authority was created to administer the assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps, and relocation of Japanese-Americans began in April 1942!. Internment camps were scattered all over the interior West, in isolated desert areas of Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming, where Japanese-Americans were forced to carry on their lives under harsh conditions!. Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Roosevelt in 1944, and the last of the camps was closed in March, 1946!.

Life in the camps was hard!. Internees had only been allowed to bring with then a few possessions!. In many cases they had been given just 48 hours to evacuate their homes!. Consequently they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than the market prices for the goods they could not take with them!.

Conditions in the U!.S!. Camps: The U!.S!. internment camps were overcrowded and provided poor living conditions!. According to a 1943 report published by the War Relocation Authority (the administering agency), Japanese Americans were housed in "tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind!." Coal was hard to come by, and internees slept under as many blankets as they were alloted!. Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per internee, and served by fellow internees in a mess hall of 250-300 people!.
Leadership positions within the camps were only offered to the Nisei, or American-born, Japanese!. The older generation, or the Issei, were forced to watch as the government promoted their children and ignored them!.
Eventually the government allowed internees to leave the concentration camps if they enlisted in the U!.S!. Army!. This offer was not well received!. Only 1,200 internees chose to do so!.Www@QuestionHome@Com