Why Japanese-Americans in Hawaii Were Spared From Internment Camps

Internment camps were never really about national security

A photograph of a World War I veteran dressed in his navy uniform, arriving at an internment camp in California where he will be incarcerated indefinitely. Photo by Clem Albers, Photographer — U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain

On February 19th of 1942, less than two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This document allowed for the military to forcefully remove anyone with as little as 1/16th of Japanese ancestry from their homes. The order called for all persons of Japanese ancestry to pack their essential items, and report to a designated Civil Control center. Once arrived, they were transported to prison camps known as “relocation centers.”

This order made no exceptions for children, the elderly, or the disabled. The living conditions at most camps were brutal, such as an old horse racetrack in Santa Anita where entire families were held in horse stalls. Most relocation centers housed families in military-style barracks, where they had essentially no privacy.

In total, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in these camps. This was done in the name of national security. In hindsight, it is apparent that other factors were much more influential than national security. The fact that less than 2% of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were relocated to these detention centers is proof of that. Hawaii had by far, the greatest Japanese-American…