The Evacuation and Relocation of the West Coast Japanese during World War II--How It Happened

During World War II, over 112,000 Pacific Coast Japanese were evacuated from their West Coast homes and were relocated inland. Approximately two-thirds of the evacuees were American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Under normal circumstances these citizens would have enjoyed the same constitutional guarantees as any American-born or naturalized citizen of the United States. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the constitutional rights of these Americans were suspended because as a racial group they were perceived to be a threat to the security of the United States. This study project was done to accomplish the following To describe the anti-Japanese environment before WW II To describe the social and political forces that created and amplified the perception that the Japanese were a security threat To describe the evacuation of the Japanese from the West Coast and their relocation inland To describe the judicial review and the constitutional challenge of the evacuation order To analyze why the evacuation happened.