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 Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by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.