They were structured like a military camp- with a few exceptions because they were harboring civilians and needed to replicate a functioning community. They layouts were formatted in square sections, divings blocks Families, bachelors, and orphans lived in tar paper barracks which were not insulated with a couple of belly pot stoves. They ate at mess halls, had latrines and laundry facilities which were placed at each square footage of blocks. As the camps progressed, fire stations, hospitals, newspapers, schools, and some local businesses were added. Community and social events were vital in persevering moral. Dances, creative classes, educational classes, and sports flourished.

Although the military police overlooked the camps up in the watchtowers, and although the camp directors with other higher authorities in camps were white, security police were Japanese-American. Other political positions were held by the Japanese-Americans who handled the organization of the camps which included labor unions, farming, and other essential social aspects. Only the young adults with American citizenships were allowed to hold these positions; excluding their fathers who many use to be community leaders themselves. They were forbidden.

This is just a broad overview and each camp was a little different based on location and who ran the camps. Some had more liberty freedom than others, such as they were allowed to take photos of the camps; other camps were divided into further segregation and discord.

For more information, these are good resources:

Tateishi, John. And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Centers. New York, New York: Random House, 1984.

Gesensway, Deborah and Roseman, Mindy. Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Weglyn, Michi. Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentraion Camps. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1976.

Answer 1

Japanese Internment Camps were important in World War II, because the US Government was trying to make sure none that of no Japanese-Americans could contact their homeland and tell them what's going to happen.

Answer 2

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, many Americans saw the Japanese-Americans as a fifth column. This meant that they viewed the Japanese-Americans as secret spies for Japan and inherently disloyal to the United States. Strangely, from a modern perspective, German-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Italian-Americans, who were much more vociferous opponents of US military policy in World War II were not even considered for discriminatory treatment, showing that this boils down to racism and fear of Asians more than it does legitimate security concerns.

In order to deal with this perceived loyalty, the President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order was used to round up Japanese-Americans all along the Pacific coast (the largest area of Japanese-Americans in the United States) and place them in internment camps. In 1944, the US Supreme Court upheld the validity of the camps on the grounds of necessary military action. Surprisingly, the Japanese-American response was not to riot or protest, but to actively seek to assist the United States military in World War II. To "prevent" the Japanese-Americans from being in contact with other Japanese, most Japanese-American units were sent to the Italian Front, where some of them earned the highest amounts of commendations and medals. After the war, the Japanese-Americans were released from the camps without any property of money from which to make a living. However, many of them were resourceful and able to sustain themselves in the following decades.

In the 1980s, the US Federal Government admitted its wrongdoing and compensated every family that still had a surviving member from the internment camps for this violation of their civil liberties.

It is critical for US Americans to remember these horrible atrocities so that US Americans can see how easily they can fall into the trap of racist treatment of minorities. Hopefully the memory of how US Americans stole the lives of fellow citizens because of the color of their skin can make us take the words of Civil Rights leaders seriously. Additionally, the Bill of Rights should apply to all Americans and the US Government failed its obligation to observe that here, resulting in the internment of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.