Then imagine this country locking in their own American Citizens in camps without a real reason.

This is what happened during WW2 in America with approximatively 120.000 Japanese-Americans. 

The well planned attack of Pearl Harbor December 7th 1941, was conducted by Japanese Admiral Yamamoto Isorokuand and the Japanese navy. After this frightening attack, the government and the people of America was terrified of Japan striking again on one of their territories or, even worse, the country. Sadly enough the government of the United States decided that the best plan to eliminate future attacks on America was to send all Japanese-Americans(62 % of them were born in America) from the pacific coast to camps,  where they would be living in for several years, locked in. 

The first time I heard about this was only a couple of weeks ago and the reason why i'm writing about this today is because we had a guest speaker in History class who was in one of these camps. He was there to inform us and tell about his experiences. 

He told us that one morning they heard on the radio that all Japanese in his area were supposed to gather in a place in a city close to where he lived. They were told to sell everything they owned except what they could carry in only one week. Thousands of people were forced to sell their businesses, houses, cars etc. for much less than what it really was worth. He would hear about people selling their cars for dimes, nickels and dollars so they could get rid of them.  

His family gathered with thousands of other Japanese-Americans at the place they were told to be at. Then they were all put on trains and nobody knew were the were going. For several day the passed different states and towns until they finally arrived in Arkansas. Here, they were assigned a room were he and his family would live in. The only thing in this room was a window, a light bulb and 5 steel beds. The bathroom facilities had no privacy and the the houses were badly constructed so it was really cold during the winter. 

They lived here from 1942 until 1945. They did not know for how long their were gonna be put in here for when they first arrived and had no idea what their lives was going to look like. They were never beaten in theses camps or they did not have to salve work, but their rights were still taken away as most of them were American citizens. 

In the end the guards and the rules started to loosen up. Men could go into work in the nearby towns and there was a school put up in the camp. There was girls scouts and boy scouts and teams were set up for the kids. They could go on field trips and go out and play in the nearby woods. 

One day they were all released. They told them that they could finally go home and back to their normals lives wherever they came from. the problem with thats was that no one knew were they were going. They had sold everything they owned before they left and had no money. They had to start their lives all over again. 

Luckily for my guest speaker, his friend from back home had taken care of their house while their were gone and they had a place to go back to, but must people settled on the East Coast.


All the black triangle dots are where these internment camps were located at.




The facilities whre they all lived in, former military housing but now turned into the Japanes American Internment camps.


In 1988 Congress and Ronald Reagan signed a legislation which apologized for the internment and gave up to $20.000 to anybody who were still alive. 

I think that this is the sadest part of U.S history and only by learning from it we can prevent it from ever happening again.