Packing for Camp: Loss and Compensation among JapaneseAmerican Evacuees
GRADE LEVEL:
9-12
INTRODUCTION
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which
gave the War Department the authority to define war zones and exclude individuals from them
who might constitute a threat to national security. The order itself did not specify the national
origins of those who would be excluded, and evacuees included Germans and Italians. But the
bulk of those interned were Japanese Americans. Between 1942 and 1946, the U.S. army exiled
122,000 people of Japanese birth or ancestry from California, Oregon, Washington and other
West Coast areas, putting them into concentration camps. During this period, the United States’
Supreme Court twice ruled that it was constitutional to deprive American citizens of their civil
liberties in the interest of national security. The Supreme Court would not reverse its ruling
regarding the legal justification of internment until 1983. It would take six more years before the
federal government would apologize to evacuees and financially compensate them for their
losses.
This lesson uses a variety of primary sources to consider the experience of Japanese-American
interment from the perspective of detainees. Students will consider what evacuees lost, what they
maintained, how they were, and how they might have been compensated for their losses. They
will examine how the federal government chose to balance civil liberties against national
security during World War II and will consider contemporary comparisons to detainees at
Guantanamo Bay. Documents for this investigation include the following: Executive Order No.
9066; Instructions to Persons of Japanese Ancestry regarding their evacuation; Dorothea Lange’s
photographs of internment; and the reflections on packing in preparation for the camps by two
young female artists -- European-American Estelle Ishigo, who chose to be interned with her
Japanese-American husband, and Japanese-American Mine Okubo, who kept a graphic journal
of her experiences as a detainee.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, there were 130,000 Japanese living in the continental United
States, more than two-thirds of whom were native-born American citizens (Nisei, or second
generation Japanese-American). Even before the war, anti-Asian sentiment was rife. Native-born
Japanese (Issei) were barred from citizenship, a number of professions and trades, and land
ownership, and Chinese-Americans had been excluded from immigrating to the U.S. since 1882.
But the Japanese attack, the first attack by a foreign power on U.S. territory since the War of
1812, exacerbated racial prejudice. War hysteria, weak political leadership, and widespread
ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to FDR’s order to detain people of Japanese birth
or ancestry in ten relocation centers in remote areas of California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado,
Wyoming, Idaho, Texas, and Arkansas. From March 1942 until 1946, the War Relocation
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Authority (WRA) administered these centers. Nearly 70,000, or almost 60% of those interned
were American citizens. Many of the rest had lived in the United States for 20 to 40 years.
“Evacuated” families operated under strict orders regarding what they could and couldn’t take
with them. They were instructed to leave behind their pets, but bring along their bedding and
toiletries. They could bring no more than they could carry and generally had very little time to
sell their personal property and businesses or find alternative arrangements for them before their
move. Thus, detainees lost both material resources and also personal treasures. They lost their
mobility through curfews and internment, as well as their privacy in the small and cramped
barracks they moved inhabited in the camps. They also faced indignities in daily life.
Nevertheless, many evacuees managed to maintain their civic engagements, religious
observances, scholastic development, aesthetic outlets, and even -- particularly for the 25,000
Japanese-Americans who served during World War II -- a sense of national loyalty.
By 1946, one year after the war’s conclusion, the WRA had closed the camps and released all of
the internees. The Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 granted those who had been interned a year
and a half to file claims against the government for damages to and loss of property as a result of
evacuation. But the $31 million the federal government paid for property paled in comparison to
that which had been lost, equaling less than 10 cents per lost dollar. It was not until 1988 that
Congress apologized for the nation’s violation of civil liberties through the Civil Liberties Act
and created an Office of Redress Administration to distribute $20,000 to each surviving internee.
THEMES:
evacuation, internment, personal possessions, living conditions, discrimination
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Following this activity, students will be able to do the following:
1. Analyze textual and visual primary sources to draw conclusions about life on the home
front during World War II.
2. Describe the experience of Japanese-American internment during World War II
3. Understand how internment affected internees both during the war and afterwards.
4. Examine how artists used photographs, cartoons, paintings, and writing to document and
criticize internment.
5. Evaluate the conflict between civil liberties and national security during periods of war in
the past and present.
NEW JERSEY STANDARDS
STANDARD 6.1 (Civics): All students will learn democratic citizenship and how to participate
in the constitutional system of government of the United States.
STANDARD 6.2 (Civics): All students will learn democratic citizenship through the humanities,
by studying literature, art, history, philosophy, and related fields.
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STANDARD 6.3 (History): All students will acquire historical understanding of political and
diplomatic ideas, forces, and institutions throughout the history of New Jersey, the United States,
and the world.
MATERIALS
•
•
•
Chalkboard or white board for recording student responses.
Appendices A through F, government documents, photographs, and memoirs (provided at
the end of this lesson plan).
If teachers opt to complete the follow-up activity, they should refer to the documents
available at the following websites: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s
http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=1088 and PBS’s
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/guantanamo.html
DETAILS OF ACTIVITY
Part 1: Making a Packing List (20 min.):
Divide the class into groups of four students. Each group will constitute a family including a
mother, father, and two siblings. Imagine that your family just learned that it would be evacuated
in three days. You do not know where you are going or what you will need there.
Carefully read and review the documents in the Appendices, particularly the instructions in
Appendix B, Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92 to make a packing list. You will only be able to
bring what you can carry. In making your list, you should consider what others brought with
them and how they spent their last few days prior to leaving for the camps. What will your
family keep, sell, give away, and leave behind? You will need to negotiate with one another to
select the most important items for each member of your family.
Part II: Sharing the List (20 min.):
One person in each family group will explain what the family chose to bring and why, justifying
their choices according to the needs of each family member. The teacher should write on the
board the key items students brought with them and ask students to discuss the similarities and
differences across family groups.
Part III: Concluding Discussion (10 min.):
Based on the lists students have generated, the class should consider what the family groups
collectively lost and what they were able to maintain as a result of internment. Teachers should
encourage students to consider in addition to material objects less concrete items (such as
autonomy, privacy, mobility, etc.). Ask students if they were put in this type of situation how
they might feel toward the U.S. Would they still be willing to serve in the war effort, as 25,000
Japanese Americans did? What type of compensation might they demand? What does JapaneseAmerican internment illustrate about the balance between civil liberties and national security?
How should the U.S. balance the two?
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Follow Up Activity #1: How to Compensate for Historical Grievances?
Have students explore long-time Philadelphia resident Sumiko Kobayashi’s correspondence
published on-line by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at
http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=1088 to examine how Japanese Americans petitioned the
federal government for a “redress of grievances” and built a coalition at the national and local
levels for legislation and compensation to acknowledge the extent to which their internment
breached their civil liberties. Ask students to consider the arguments for and against reparations
based on Kobayashi’s correspondence and what they have already learned regarding JapaneseAmerican losses during internment.
In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, which apologized to Japanese-American
internees and offered them each $20,000 in reparations. If Japanese-Americans are entitled to
reparations, should other groups deprived of their civil liberties, such as African Americans
during slavery, be compensated for their deprivation and suffering? What do Kobayashi’s papers
reveal about who determines who should be compensated how much and for what?
Follow Up Activity #2: From Tragedy to Farce? Comparing Detentions at Guantanamo
Bay to Japanese-American Internment
Compare the Bush administration’s detainment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay to
Japanese-American internment during World War II. Ask students to research the case of
Guantanamo Bay using the sources located in a lesson plan developed by PBS called “The
Rights of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/guantanamo.html or use this
material to develop a short lecture. Divide the class up into groups and have each group read a
different source and share their findings. Based on their research and the teacher’s introduction,
ask the students the following questions:
1. What are the similarities and differences between detainment at Guantanamo Bay and
Japanese-American incarceration?
2. Should Guantanamo detainees be entitled to the right of due process? Should they be
compensated as Japanese-American internees eventually were for being held without due
process?
3. When Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, one of the justifications for the
act was to prevent similar recurrences in the future. What lessons, if any, were learned
from Japanese-American internment? Do the detentions at Guantanamo Bay illustrate
what the German political philosopher and revolutionary Karl Marx wrote In The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napolean: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second
as farce”? What does this mean and does it apply to these two cases? Why or why not?
___________________________________________________________
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REFERENCES and WEBSITES:
This lesson plan is adapted from the Japanese American Internment Curriculum
http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/introinternment.html; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s
Japanese-American Internment and Redress: Petition and Coalition Building at
http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=1088; PBS’s “The Rights of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/guantanamo.html; and the
Smithsonian Museum of American History’s exhibition “A More Perfect Union: Japanese
Americans and the U.S. Constitution,”
http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/resources/activity1.html.
See the following resources for more information about each of the following areas:
For more on The Japanese-American internment experience see the Organization of American
Historians Magazine, Special Issue: “World War II Homefront,” Spring 2002, especially the
article by Roger Daniels, http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/ww2homefront/ww2homefront.pdf.
For more first-hand accounts of internment, see Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660 (orig. printed New
York: Columbia University Press, 1946; reprinted University of Washington Press, 1983) and the
art and writing of Estelle Ishigo, at the Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives,
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/browse/personal-experiences.html.
For more photographs of internment, see Dorothea Lange’s photographs at The Virtual Museum
of the City of San Francisco, “Dorthea Lange and the Relocation of the Japanese:”
http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist/lange.html and the Library of Congress,
“Women Come to the Front,” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0001.html:. For Ansel
Adam’s photographs of internment, see the Library of Congress’s collection at “Ansel Adam’s
Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar:”
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/aamsp.html.
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Appendix A: Civilian Exclusion Order No. 9066,
February 19, 1942
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9066
FEBRUARY 19, 1942
Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas
Whereas, The successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against
espionage and against sabotage to national defense material, national defense premises and
national defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533 as amended
by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220. and the Act of August 21, 1941. 55 Stat. 655
(U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104):
Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, l hereby authorized and direct the Secretary of War,
and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any
designated Commander deem such action necessary or desirable to prescribe military areas in
such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine,
from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any
person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War
or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is
hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded there from such
transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of
the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander and until other arrangements are made, to
accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality
shall supersede designation of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the
Proclamation of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of
the Attorney General under the said Proclamation in respect of such prohibited and restricted
areas.
I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to
take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to
enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area herein above authorized
to be designated. including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority
to accept assistance of state and local agencies.
I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Department, independent establishments and
other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in
carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food,
clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities
and service.
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This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority granted under
Executive Order 8972. dated December 12.1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or
modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with response to
the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or duty and responsibility of the Attorney General
and the Department of Justice under the Proclamation of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing
regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is
superseded by the designation of military areas thereunder.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The White House, February 19, 1942.
Source: Japanese American Internment Curriculum created by the California Civil Liberties
Public Education Program, http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/executiorder9066.html
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Appendix B: Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92, May 23, 1942
WESTERN DEFENSE COMMAND AND FOURTH ARMY
WARTIME CIVIL CONTROL Administration
Presidio of San Francisco, California
INSTRUCTIONS
TO ALL PERSONS OF
JAPANESE
ANCESTRY
LIVING IN THE FOLLOWING AREA:
All that portion of the Counties of Sacramento and Amador, State of California, within
the boundary beginning at a point at which California State Highway No. 16 intersects
California State Highway No. 49, approximately two miles south of Plymouth: thence
southerly along said Highway No. 49 to the Amador -Calaveras County Line; thence
westerly along the Amador-Calaveras County Line to the Amador-San Joaquin County
Line; thence northerly along the Amador-San Joaquin County Line to the SacramentoSan Joaquin County Line; thence westerly along the Sacramento-San Joaquin County
Line to the easterly line of the right of way of the main line of the Southern Pacific
Railroad from Lodi to Sacramento; thence northerly along said easterly line to its
crossing with California State Highway No. 16; thence easterly along said Highway No.
16 to point of beginning
Pursuant to the provisions of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92, this Headquarters, dated May 23,
1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the
above area by 12 o'clock noon, P.W.T., Saturday, May 30, 1942.
No Japanese parson will be permitted to move into, or out of the above area after 12 o'clock
noon, P.W.T., Saturday, May 23, 1942, without obtaining special permission from the
representative of the Commanding General, Northern California Sector, at the Civil Control
Station located at:
Masonic Hall,
Elk Grove, California.
Such permits will only be granted for the purpose of uniting members of a family, or in cases of
grave emergency.
The Civil Control Station is equipped to assist the Japanese population affected by this
evacuation in the following ways:
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1. Give advice and instructions on the evacuation.
2. Provide services with respect to the management, leasing, sale, storage or other disposition of
most kinds of property such as real estate, business and professional equipment, household
goods, boats, automobiles and livestock.
3. Provide temporary residence elsewhere for all Japanese in family groups.
4. Transport persons and a limited amount of clothing and equipment to their new residence.
THE FOLLOWING INTRUCTIONS MUST BE OBSERVED:
1. A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, or the person in
whose name most of the property is held, and each individual living alone, will report to the
Civil Control Station to receive further instructions. This must be done between 8:00 A.M. and
5:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 24, 1942, or between 8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on Monday, May 25,
1942.
2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property:
(a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family;
(b) Toilet articles for each member of the family;
(c) Extra clothing for each member of the family;
(d) Essential personal effects for each member of the family.
A11 items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner
and numbered in accordance with instructions obtained at the Civil Control Station. The size and
number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.
3. No pets of any kind will be permitted.
4. No personal items and no household goods will be shipped to the Assembly Center.
5. The United States Government through its agencies will provide for the storage, at the sole
risk of the owner, of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines,
pianos and other heavy furniture. Cooking utensils and other small items will be accepted for
storage if crated, packed and plainly marked with the name and address of the owner. Only one
name and address will be used by a given family.
6. Each family, and individual living alone wi11 be furnished transportation to the Assembly
Center. Private means of transportation will not be utilized. All instructions pertaining to the
movement will be obtained at the Civil Control Station.
Go to the Civil Control Station between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M., Sunday, May 24,
1942, or between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M., Monday, May 25, 1942, to receive
further instructions.
J. L. DEWITT
Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
Commanding
May 23, 1942
Source: Japanese American Internment Curriculum created by the California Civil Liberties
Public Education Program, http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/civilianexclusiontext.html
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Appendix C: Dorothea Lange’s Photograph
of Executive Order No. 5
Source: Dorothea Lange, Civilian Executive Order No. 5, April 1942, Prints and Photographs
Division (93), LC-USZ62-34565, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/images/wcf093.jpg.
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Appendix D: Dorothea Lange Photograph of Evacuees
Source: Dorothea Lange, “Turlock, California. These young evacuees of Japanese ancestry are
awaiting their turn for baggage inspection at this Assembly center," National Archives,
http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/collection/image.asp?ID=816.
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Appendix E: Excerpt from Estelle Ishigo’s Unpublished
Memoir, “Lone Heart Mountain”
It was very hard to know what to put in that duffle bag to decide what to take, there was
no way of knowing what might happen what we really might need — "one hundred
pounds of baggage" read the order — no more. Our furniture was stacked in a corner for
men from the government warehouse to take away. Home was gone.
Hollow echos (sic), impersonal and cold, answered our footsteps, slowly, with heavy
heart we lifted our bundles, left the door to walk away and report at that ordered meeting
place.
Gathered around the church that early May morning were four hundred and fifty of us
standing in groups with bundles and baskets piled at the curb. Red Cross women brought
trays of hot coffee, but nothing could quell the fear and bitter weeping of some, the
dreadful uncertainty of what might happen-what it might be like.
They began loading bundles into trucks, and we saw some of the baggage of those who
had not weighed their "100 pounds" carefully left lying in the streets." (page 5)
Here at this new place the rooms were like barns before, — one family to a room. But
these barracks, with steps, and little storm poarch (sic) and double flooring for winter
time. Inside were just the roofs and rafters with no ceilings, and the rooms were made of
eight foot the board partitions and they held a coal stove, cots, two blankets each and a
bucket and broom, nothing more: and a great din of voices of all the families rose over
the partitions throughout the barracks.
Source: Estelle Ishigo, “Lone Heart Mountain,” unpublished manuscript, p. 5, Japanese
American Relocation Digital Archives (JARDA), Calisphere,
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen.ics?ark=ark:/13030/hb6290111f/z6&order=7&brand
=calisphere.
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Appendix F: Excerpt from Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660
(NY: AMS Press, Inc., 1966).
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