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Japanese American internment: Quick Facts

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The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Facts

Date 1942 - 1946
Location United States

Did You Know?

  • Two-thirds of prisoners in the camps were native-born American citizens.
  • A federal investigation revealed that at the time of internment, only three percent of Japanese-Americans were considered direct threats to U.S. security.
  • Internment camp guards shot prisoners who attempted to escape.

Photos and Videos

Map of the western and central United States during 1942-46, showing the exclusion area along the West Coast in pink where Japanese Americans were forcibly removed. Red stars indicate the locations of the ten internment camps: Tule Lake, Manzanar, Poston, Gila River, Minidoka, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Granada, Rohwer, and Jerome.
Dorothea Lange: the Mochida family ready for relocation
Dorothea Lange: photograph of a store owner's response to anti-Japanese sentiment
Japanese American internment: removal
Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment: children
Japanese American internment: children
Japanese American internment: dispossession
Entrance to the Manzanar War Relocation Center
Manzanar War Relocation Center
How life changed for Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor
How Japanese Americans were forced from their homes in the 1940s
Surviving Japanese American incarceration during World War II
What life was like in a Japanese American incarceration camp
Living without medical care in Japanese American internment camps
See All Videos and Images →

Related Topics and References

Topics

Key People

Franklin D. Roosevelt smiling and leaning on a surface, holding a cigarette in a holder, wearing a suit and glasses, photographed in 1937.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
president of United States
McCloy, John J.
John J. McCloy
American diplomat