33 Months

In the months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, suspicions around Japanese American citizens began to grow, so much so that in February of 1942, FDR signed executive order 9066, which was used to justify the forced removal of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and incarcerated them in camps in California, Utah, New Mexico, Arkansas, and other states. Despite a complete lack of any evidence of wrongdoing, these Americans remained incarcerated through the duration of the war, until the last camp closed on March 20, 1946. After 33 months of incarceration, Japanese Americans could return to their homes. Unfortunately for many, they no longer had homes or jobs to return to, and while a series of legislative victories followed in the immediate postwar years, it wasn’t until decades later after the Redress Movement gained momentum that there was any formal apology or reparations paid for what these families endured.