Farming Behind Barbed Wire
: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration : The Salt Many of the incarcerated were farmers, coerced to work the land in the camps. The food they grew was meant for the incarcerated but camp administrators sold it on the open market.
What were the economic effects of internment?
Internees who were sent to wealthier locations earned more and were more likely to complete college and work in higher-status careers
. Those who were put in poor, rural areas far away from cultural centers received less education, lived in worse housing, and earned less money.
Did people have jobs in internment camps?
Employment at the camps was not mandatory, but most adult internees chose to work
. Not only was it a way for them to pass the time and to earn a wage, but also internee employment was necessary for the everyday operations of the camps. The majority worked full-time, usually around forty-four hours per week.
Were there jobs in the Japanese internment camps?
From
doctors to janitors
, there was a job for nearly everyone. Each camp had its own hospital, police department, and fire department. Evacuee dentists, doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff worked under Caucasian directors.
Does the US pay reparations to Japan?
The Act also directed reparations payments of $20,000 each to former internees.
The United States would eventually pay reparations of $1.6 billion (or $3.5 billion in 2019 dollars) to 82,219 formerly interned Japanese Americans.
How did America treat Japanese prisoners?
The treatment of American and allied prisoners by the Japanese is one of the abiding horrors of World War II.
Prisoners were routinely beaten, starved and abused and forced to work in mines and war-related factories in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.
How much money did Japanese Americans lose during internment?
Those imprisoned ended up losing
between $2 billion and $5 billion
worth of property in 2017 dollars during the war, according to the Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians.
How much money did Japanese Americans lose when they were forced into the camps?
The Japanese American relocation program had significant consequences. Camp residents lost some
$400 million
in property during their incarceration. Congress provided $38 million in reparations in 1948 and forty years later paid an additional $20,000 to each surviving individual who had been detained in the camps.
How did internment camps affect Japanese?
Within the camps, Japanese Americans endured
dehumanizing conditions including poor housing and food, a lack of privacy, inadequate medical care, and substandard education
.
Why did the US put Japanese in internment camps?
Nearly two months after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.
In an effort to curb potential Japanese espionage
, Executive Order 9066 approved the relocation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. At first, the relocations were completed on a voluntary basis.
Why were thousands of US citizens put in internment camps during the war?
Many Americans
worried that citizens of Japanese ancestry would act as spies or saboteurs for the Japanese government
. Fear — not evidence — drove the U.S. to place over 127,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps for the duration of WWII. Over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II.
Why did US pay reparations to Japanese?
The commission determined that
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order to incarcerate Japanese Americans was spurred by racism and wartime hysteria
— not military necessity — and recommended that reparations be paid to survivors.
How much did the US pay the Japanese for reparations?
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which officially apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government and authorized a payment of
$20,000 (equivalent to $44,000 in 2020)
to each former internee who was still alive when the act was passed.
How many Japanese died in internment camps in America?
| Japanese American Internment | Cause Attack on Pearl Harbor; Niihau Incident;racism; war hysteria | Most camps were in the Western United States. | Total Over 110,000 Japanese Americans, including over 66,000 U.S. citizens, forced into internment camps | Deaths 1,862 from all causes in camps |
|---|
Why did the Japanese treat their prisoners of war so horribly?
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers
to believe that surrender was dishonourable
. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect. The IJA also relied on physical punishment to discipline its own troops.
How did the Japanese treat female prisoners of war?
They organized shifts and began care for other prisoners who were captured, but despite the different roles their Japanese captors treated them equally badly. All these women had to
constantly fight off starvation and disease
, with an average weight loss being about 30% of their body weight.
How many men survived the march to the POW camp?
Some 20,000
soldiers who’d survived the march and made it to the camp soon died there thanks to disease, sweltering heat, and brutal executions.
What did many Japanese Americans compare the internment camps to?
What did many Japanese – Americans compare the internment camps too? Many of the Japanese Americans compared internment camps to
the plantations black slaves were kept on
. They did not know which way to turn which was similar to the slaves when they were freed at the end of the Civil War.
