DeWitt was responsible for the defense of the West Coast. But when the Army and FBI investigated these rumors, they found them to be false. Rumors spread about Japanese Americans preparing to aid a Japanese invasion of the United States. They demanded that "something be done" about the Issei and Nisei living there. In the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor, pressure mounted from politicians on the West Coast. Sixty-three percent of them were Nisei, American-born citizens. Despite discrimination, the Issei and Nisei had built thriving ethnic communities in California and the West Coast. In 1940, 127,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lived in the United States, mostly in California. The Nisei thought of themselves as Americans, not Japanese. They attended public schools, spoke English, attended college, worked in many occupations, and voted in elections. Called Nisei, the second generation, they quickly became Americanized. The Issei's children who were born in the United States automatically became American citizens. In 1924, the federal government placed a ban on all Japanese immigration. California, where most of the Issei lived, made it illegal for them to own agricultural land. Federal law prohibited the Issei from ever becoming naturalized U.S. The Issei met a lot of official racial discrimination. They called themselves the Issei, the first Japanese immigrant generation. In the 1880s, Japanese immigrants began coming to the West Coast of the United States to work. Fred Korematsu, an American citizen of Japanese descent, refused to go, and his case went before the Supreme Court. government ordered 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry into prison camps. Wartime and the Bill of Rights: The Korematsu Caseĭuring World War II, the U.S.Bill of Rights in Action, Summer 2002 (18:3)
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