WHY WERE JAPANESE AMERICANS PUT INTO CAMPS?
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans of Japanese ancestry were alleged to be a threat to the military security on the west coast. However, there were never any acts of espionage or sabotage ever discovered then or now. Two-thirds of those incarcerated were American citizens by birth, their parents, not allowed to become citizens, had lived as permanent U.S. residents for the previous 20-40 years. In 1982, a committee appointed by the U.S. Congress concluded that the incarceration was carried out without adequate reasons of security and was motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a failure of political leadership.
