Free Response

When the United States was in a war with Japan, many Americans were suspicious with the Japanese-Americans because they thought they would not be loyal to America and would side with the Japanese. The government decided that they needed to take all of the Japanese-Americans to a camp in a deserted area until the war was over because they did not want them to be spies for Japan. Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066 which authorized the Secretary of War to keep specific places in the United States for internment camps. The government took Japanese-Americans from the West side of America who had a Japanese background and took them away from their home and brought them to a camp isolated from society. There were guards watching the camp to make sure people did not try to escape. The camp did not have sanitary facilities or homes and the food was under par. The Japanese-Americans did not have a choice if they wanted to go to the camp and they had to leave everything behind. They were only able to bring one suitcase and anything that fit in it. At the camp people were able to work, but they were paid almost nothing and were mostly doing labor jobs. At the end of the war the Japanese-Americans were able to leave the camps and go back to their homes, but many times they had a hard time adjusting back to their daily routine. In 1988 Ronald Reagan apologized for the mistreatment of the Japanese-Americans and said that it was out of prejudice.