After the Pearl Harbour attack, increased Anti-Japanese sentiment and suspicion of the Japanese for anti-national activities was increasingly observed, Japan being responsible for the attack. This led to the introduction of Japanese Internment Camps in egregious violation of the American civil rights. Everyone who were at least one-sixteenth Japanese were forcibly relocated to these internment camps, including 17,000 children under 10 and thousands who were elderly and handicapped with approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans throughout the United States being forcibly relocated to these internment camps.
These relocation centers were located in remote areas and structures such as fairgrounds, racetracks and horse stalls or cow sheds were converted in order to provide housing. In Portland, Oregon, 3000 Japanese Americans stayed in a livestock pavilion – Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities. The Santa Anita Assembly Center, another relocation center, was home to 18000 Japanese Americans, 8500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation due to the building of these relocation centers in unhygienic locations like horse stalls and cow sheds.
Violence was also frequent in these relocation centers. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, at least three men were shot and killed while attempting to flee the concentration camp. At Manzanar, California, a Japanese American Citizens League member was beaten up by six masked men. Out of fears of a riot, the police tear-gassed the residents and killed one man. At the Topaz Relocation Centre, a man was shot for going too near the perimeter and a few months later a couple was shot for the same reason. In 1943, a riot broke out at Tule Lake and was suppressed by the use of tear gas and declaration of Martial Law.
The appalling violation of the American civil rights in the forcible relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II due to suspicion of anti-American activities among the Japanese after the Attack on Pearl Harbor goes widely unpublicized. However, these internment camps had a profound effect on the Japanese-Americans, their health and well-being and their lives.