The video clip covers personal narratives from victims and descendants and highlights how the American government forced Japanese Americans and the Aleuts of Alaska into incarceration camps under President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The lesson covers the forced removal process, conditions and lives in the camps, and the eventual release of prisoners. The lesson analyzes the incarceration of Japanese Americans and Aleuts as a violation of their constitutional rights. Students discuss examples of incarceration and connect instances of incarceration with current social and political events pertaining to the concept of “families belong together.”

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

Two months after Pearl Harbor was bombed in Hawai'i, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 (February 19, 1942), which forcibly incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans in ten different incarceration camps across the U.S. The ensuing war between the U.S. and its allies against the Axis forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan increased anti-Japanese sentiment, causing distrust of the large Japanese population on the West Coast of the United States. Despite the fact that 2/3 of them were U.S. citizens, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to America’s wartime enemy, Japan.

After Executive Order No. 9066 was issued, the U.S. government only allowed Japanese Americans to bring whatever they could carry to the camps and gave them only one week to dispose of the rest of their personal belongings. They did not receive any due process, and they were immediately hauled onto different buses and sent to camps across the country. Anyone with at least 1/16th of Japanese ancestry was incarcerated, including infants. In other words, the incarceration of Japanese Americans was based on race, not security. How can a mere infant be a dangerous enemy of the United States?

During incarceration, Japanese Americans faced mistreatment inside the camps. Men were separated from women – husbands from their wives. They lacked food to eat, milk for babies, and coal for heat. Uprisings broke out because of these deplorable conditions. Several incarcerees were shot and killed by military police. The suicide rate was high inside the camps as well. Incarcerated Japanese Americans were also forced to answer a loyalty questionnaire regarding their loyalty to the United States. If they responded “no” to the loyalty questionnaire, they were transferred to Tule Lake where they faced even harsher conditions.

While Japanese Americans were incarcerated due to fear and racism, a group of indigenous Aleuts in Alaska were also incarcerated during this time. The Aleuts lived in a combat zone, as Japanese forces attacked Alaska, and the American government decided to forcibly remove the Aleuts from their homes. Once they were removed, their homes were burned to the ground because the American government did not want Japanese soldiers to occupy them.

In other words, the Aleuts were not consulted. Just like the Japanese Americans, the Aleuts were sent to incarceration camps to live in deplorable conditions.

In September 1943, President Roosevelt promised a return to the West Coast for some Japanese Americans, and the U.S. Army agreed later that there was no longer any reason for the incarceration. Partly because of election year politics, Roosevelt delayed the return to three days after his reelection, on Nov. 10, 1944. Tule Lake was the last camp to close, on March 20, 1946. The only assistance the released incarcerees received from the federal government was $25 and a train ticket. They had no homes or jobs to return to: many of their homes were burned, and some were shot at in their homes. For decades after the war, the experience of incarceration remained so painful that many never spoke about their treatment, not even to their own families.