The "Evacuation" of the Japanese Following Pearl Harbor.
By December of 1942 the United states had interned an estimated 110,000 Japanese in concentration camps. There were numerous justifications for this action, the most prevalent being that these Japanese were security risks. Cries of warning over the proximity of these "enemy aliens" to locations of strategic importance were voiced often. But the genesis of this idea can be traced to before even World War I. In 1913 the Webb Act stripped all alien Japanese of the right to own property. In 1924 came the Exclusion Act which prohibited Japanese immigration. These laws, and many others, are evidence of America's prejudice towards the Japanese. Racism, despite any claims to the contrary, was the actual motivation for interning the Japanese in camps. .
In 1941 the Japanese living in the United States had cause to worry: war with the country of their ancestry seemed inevitable. On the day Pearl Harbor was bombed a telegram was sent to the President from the J.A.C.L. addressing this concern. "In this solemn hour we pledge our fullest cooperation to you, Mr. President, and to our country. There cannot be any question. There must be no doubt. We, in our hearts, are Americans, loyal to America."(#4) .
In 1942 the Japanese living in the United States had an additional cause to worry: they were still living on good farm land. An anonymous letter to the president addressed this second concern. "We must get rid of all Japs in California. For years we people on the western coast have preached about this menace to the rest of the nation, but no one believed us. Now they occupy all the best farm ground in California."(#18) .
This created a problem. The Japanese who had bombed Pearl Harbor would be an easy problem to deal with: simply kill them. But the Japanese who lived on the best farm land in California could not, simply, be killed. This was a problem that could not be ignored.
