JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1779

On Evacuees, Excludees, and “Segregees”: Closing an Ugly Chapter in U.S. History–the Japanese Internment Camps, 1942-1945

As of April 30, 1945, the U.S. government allocated a total of $39 million to relocate 120,000 or so Japanese “evacuees” from “evacuation centers” back to their “normal homes”.  That comes to about $275.00 per person:  but that is mostly allocated to payment for personnel, because, really, all that was happening was that these people were being sent back home somewhere, or if their homes/farms had been undersold from under them, to somewhere not-their-home.  Of course the figure is slightly inflated, because of all of those Japanese interred during this time nearly 10% of them volunteered to fight in the U.S. Armed Forces, so for those who survived after serving in some of America’s most highly-decorated units of all time, Uncle Sam was paying the bill to send those young men home.  But offsetting the Americans of Japanese decent who fought in the war were about another 10,000 babies born in the “segregation centers”, so the numbers stay fairly-well the same.  (I cannot offhand find any numbers on the numbers of people who died in the camps, or for that matter what happened to their remains after the camps (and camp cemeteries) were closed.  I do not know if that was a government expense–to move the coffin and pay for reburial–or if that expense became a private affair.)

Dillon Myer, who was the director of the War Relocation Authority,  testified in Congress on 30 April 1945 that it was time for the “relocation centers” to be closed, and for the “evacuees” to go home.  And to go home on schedule. 

“Not later than 15 months, after revocation of the general exclusion orders, all evacuee property services to persons other than excludees (including segregees) will terminate, and all evacuee property warehouses not utilized for the property of such persons will be emptied…”

I expect that few of the American Japanese wanted to linger.