War Relocation Authority

The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was a US government agency created to oversee the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Suspicion of Japanese Americans began after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The WRA oversaw the construction and operation of internment camps where Japanese American men, women, and children were forcibly detained. The WRA was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 and terminated by President Harry S. Truman in 1946.

Background

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9100, which authorized military commanders to create facilities to house or detain persons considered a threat to national security. The government was especially suspicious of Japanese Americans, believing them likely to be spies, even if they had been born in the United States. Many Japanese Americans lived in California at the time and faced racism regardless of their innocence or loyalty to their country. The state’s attorney general, Earl Warren, stated that the lack of evidence against Japanese Americans was meaningless because it did not prove that they would not betray America in the future.

The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was established on March 18, 1942, to oversee the detainment and internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans and a small number of individuals of German and Italian ancestry. The WRA forcibly detained Japanese American men, women, and children, dividing them into three categories: Japanese citizens who were born in the country but whose parents were immigrants; Japanese immigrants; and US citizens born in the United States who had been educated mostly in Japan. Of these three groups, Japanese immigrants endured the worst treatment although all groups were rounded up and sent to relocation centers in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Conditions in the relocation centers, also called assembly centers, were harsh. At some centers, inmates were not permitted to speak their own language, and police could arbitrarily search their barracks.

Roosevelt chose Milton S. Eisenhower to serve as the first director of the WRA. Eisenhower was the brother of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and had worked for the US Department of Agriculture. However, Eisenhower opposed the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. He pushed for only men to be interred, leaving women and children free, but was unsuccessful. He also wanted to make the internment camps like rural houses and offer Japanese Americans an incentive to settle in these areas after the war. He urged Roosevelt to enlist the Federal Reserve Bank to protect the Japanese Americans’ homes and businesses while they were interred. However, state governors disapproved of his requests, as did Roosevelt, and none were granted. Eisenhower resigned as director of the WRA after only ninety days. He was replaced by Dillon S. Myer, also a former employee of the Department of Agriculture, who ran the WRA until the end of the war when it was no longer needed.

Overview

The WRA was charged with selecting locations to build internment camps, which were essentially American concentration camps. Most of the land they chose was Native American tribal land that was far from military strategic locations. The WRA oversaw the construction of buildings large enough to house five thousand people. Labor shortages because of the war caused construction to progress slowly, and some Japanese Americans were forced to live in unfinished structures and help complete their construction. Camps were surrounded by barbed wire fencing and had guard towers. Guards shot at inmates who came too close to the fencing, in some cases killing them. While the WRA tried to create communities within the camps, they largely resembled prisons. Families lived in cramped quarters and had to use communal bathrooms and eat in mess halls. While the government supplied the inmates with food, the cost was limited to a maximum of fifty cents per day per inmate. Because of this, the food was of poor quality and lacked suitable nutrition.

The WRA hired inmates to carry out most tasks in the camps because it was less expensive and encouraged productivity. Some inmates cleaned and cooked. Those who were licensed doctors and dentists were hired to provide their services to inmates. However, regardless of the job, inmates were paid little money; in some cases, they earned less than prison inmates. The WRA also established a loyalty program, in which inmates completed a loyalty questionnaire. Those who were deemed “disloyal” were subjected to segregation.

The Community Analysis Section (CAS) was created by the WRA. The analysts working for this program gathered information on inmates such as their level of education, job skills, and cooperation in the camps. They also assessed their treatment while interred. The analysts then created reports conveying this information. While some analysts strongly objected to the internment of Japanese Americans and were critical of their treatment in the camps, they had to comply with the WRA’s publicly stated opinion that the Japanese Americans were happy and productive in the internment camps.

In 1942, Dillon S. Myer, the second director of the WRA, sought to end the internment of Japanese Americans as soon as possible because he was concerned that they might become dependent upon the government. At this time, the WRA changed its focus to helping the Japanese Americans resettle, encouraging them to move to cities with small populations of Japanese Americans. The WRA wanted them to assimilate with White Americans and adopt their culture. They advised them to learn to speak English fluently and avoid speaking Japanese. Young Japanese American men were encouraged to enlist in the US Army and fight for the country that had imprisoned them. California and other areas on the West Coast were reopened to Japanese Americans on January 2, 1945. All internment camps were closed later that year. On January 26, 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9742, which officially terminated the WRA.

In 1990, the US government formally apologized to Japanese Americans for their internment. Survivors of the internment camps or their heirs were given a check for twenty thousand dollars.

Bibliography

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Hinnershitz, Stephanie. “What We’re Fighting For: America’s Servicemen on Hypocrisy on the Home Front.” The National World War II Museum, 20 July 2021, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/what-we-are-fighting-for-war-relocation-authority. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Maruyama, Hana. “How Japanese Incarceration Was Entangled with Indigenous Dispossession.” KCET, www.kcet.org/news-community/how-japanese-american-incarceration-was-entangled-with-indigenous-dispossession. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Muller, Eric L. “The War Relocation Authority and the Wounding of Japanese American Loyalty.” Social Research, 7 Oct. 2019, dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3465883. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Pearson, Bradford. “For Japanese-Americans, Housing Injustices Outlived Internment.” New York Times Magazine, 20 Aug. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/magazine/japanese-internment-end-wwii-trailer-parks.html. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Shimabukuro, Mira. Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration. University Press of Colorado, 2015.

“War Relocation Authority Is Established in the United States.” History.com, 27 Apr. 2023, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/war-relocation-authority-is-established-in-united-states. Accessed 6 June 2023.