Those that attacked roosevelt for using too much federal power in new deal measures feared what

By 1940, people from many different ethnic and racial groups made their home in California. A set of maps show the distribution of racial and national groups in the greater Los Angeles area, based on the 1940 US census. Asian groups listed include Japanese, Filipino, and “foreign born from Asia.” A news photo taken shortly before Pearl Harbor shows a diverse group of chefs at a Los Angeles restaurant — a Filipino, a Japanese American, and a Chinese American. According to the caption, "And they get along too."

During the War

As the century progressed, Japanese Americans became established in industries related to growing and selling produce and flowers. By the time of the US entry into World War II, these industries were thriving, and many Japanese Americans had entered the middle class.

After the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, however, the federal government rounded up and relocated 120,000 Californians of Japanese descent in the name of national security. Dorothea Lange took the photograph of farm families boarding an evacuation bus in Centerville, carrying parcels (evacuees were only allowed to take what possessions they could carry). Two-thirds of the Japanese Americans were actually American born, and thus citizens. Most were incarcerated in 10 remote and guarded “relocation camps” for more than two years, despite never being convicted — or even formally accused — of a crime. Conditions were bleak in the camps: a photograph shows a man resting on a cot after moving his possessions into a cramped room; and a painting by internee artist Estelle Ishigo portrays a family at home in the camps. To prove their loyalty and patriotism, many men joined the segregated all-Japanese American 442..

3 0

3 years ago