--- title: "Internment — APUSH Definition & Exam Guide" description: "Internment is wartime confinement without trial, most famously of 120,000 Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066. Key for APUSH Units 6-7 and civil liberties DBQs." canonical: "https://fiveable.me/apush/key-terms/internment" type: "key-term" subject: "AP US History" --- # Internment — APUSH Definition & Exam Guide ## Definition Internment is the government's imprisonment or confinement of people without trial during wartime or national emergency. In APUSH, it refers above all to the forced relocation and detention of about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II under Executive Order 9066 (1942). ## What It Is Internment means locking people up without charging them with a crime, justified by wartime fear rather than evidence. The [APUSH](/apush "fv-autolink") case you need cold is the WWII internment of Japanese Americans. After [Pearl Harbor](/apush/key-terms/pearl-harbor "fv-autolink"), President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, creating military exclusion zones on the West Coast. Roughly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were forced to abandon homes, farms, and businesses and were moved to remote camps for the rest of the war. The Supreme Court upheld the policy in *Korematsu v. United States* (1944), accepting the government's national security argument. The CED frames internment as one of the major wartime "challenges to civil liberties" generated by [World War II](/apush/unit-7/context-20th-century-global-conflicts/study-guide/4AKsCOPpRLPL2usRPyD6 "fv-autolink"). That's the lens to use. Internment wasn't a response to actual sabotage (no Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage during the war), and German and Italian Americans were never targeted on the same mass scale. That contrast is exactly what exam questions probe when they ask whether internment was really about national defense or about racial prejudice dressed up as security. ## Why It Matters Internment lives in **[Topic 7.12](/apush/unit-7/world-war-ii-mobilization/study-guide/5YjYcPKLKi9eIBZzNaXs "fv-autolink") (World War II: Mobilization)** under learning objective **APUSH 7.12.A**, which asks you to explain how WWII transformed American society. The essential knowledge names it directly: wartime experiences "generated challenges to [civil liberties](/apush/key-terms/civil-liberties "fv-autolink"), such as the internment of Japanese Americans." So while mobilization opened doors for women and minorities, internment is the flip side, the war narrowing rights instead of expanding them. The term also connects back to **Topic 6.8 (Immigration and Migration)** and **APUSH 6.8.A**, because the anti-Asian nativism that made internment thinkable had been building since the Gilded Age, when Asian immigrants faced exclusion laws and harsh processing at places like Angel Island. Thematically, internment is a go-to example for the tension between national security and civil liberties, one of the most reliable through-lines in APUSH from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the Patriot Act. ## Connections ### [Executive Order 9066 (Unit 7)](/apush/key-terms/executive-order-9066) EO 9066 is the legal trigger; internment is the result. Roosevelt's order authorized military exclusion areas, and the mass removal and detention of Japanese Americans followed from it. Know both terms and which one is the cause. ### Civil Liberties in Wartime (Units 5, 7, 8) Internment is one chapter in a recurring APUSH pattern. [Lincoln](/apush/key-terms/lincoln "fv-autolink") suspended habeas corpus in the Civil War, the Espionage and Sedition Acts cracked down on dissent in WWI, and internment followed in WWII. Wars consistently pressure civil liberties, and that continuity is DBQ gold. ### Angel Island and Anti-Asian Nativism (Unit 6) Internment didn't come out of nowhere. Decades of anti-Asian discrimination, from Chinese exclusion to the harsh interrogations at [Angel Island](/apush/key-terms/angel-island "fv-autolink"), built the racial prejudice that made it politically easy to imprison Japanese Americans but not German Americans. ### A. Philip Randolph and Wartime Civil Rights (Unit 7) WWII cut both ways for minorities. Randolph's threatened [march on Washington](/apush/key-terms/march-on-washington "fv-autolink") won an end to defense-industry discrimination in the same era that internment stripped Japanese Americans of their rights. Pairing these two shows you can handle complexity, which is exactly what essay rubrics reward. ## On the AP Exam Internment shows up in multiple-choice stems that ask you to evaluate the gap between the official justification (national defense) and the historical reality (racial prejudice), for example questions asking what evidence undermines the claim that EO 9066 was purely a security measure, or what immediate effect the order had on Japanese Americans. It also appeared on the 2018 SAQ (Q4) and fits squarely into the 2024 DBQ prompt asking how beliefs about threats to the United States shaped society from 1917 to 1945. For that kind of essay, internment is your strongest 1940s evidence that fear of foreign threats reshaped American society at the expense of civil liberties. The move that earns points is contextualization plus evaluation. Place internment in the longer arc of anti-Asian nativism, then argue how far security versus racism explains it. ## Internment vs Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 is the specific presidential order Roosevelt signed in February 1942 authorizing military exclusion zones. Internment is the broader practice that followed, the actual removal and confinement of about 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps. On the exam, cite EO 9066 when a question asks about government policy or causes, and use internment when describing the experience and its civil liberties consequences. ## Key Takeaways - Internment is the wartime confinement of people without trial, and in APUSH it almost always means the detention of about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. - Executive Order 9066 (1942) authorized the military exclusion zones that led to internment, and the Supreme Court upheld the policy in Korematsu v. United States (1944). - About two-thirds of those interned were U.S. citizens, and German and Italian Americans were never targeted on a mass scale, which is strong evidence that racial prejudice, not just security, drove the policy. - The CED labels internment a wartime challenge to civil liberties under APUSH 7.12.A, making it the standard counterexample to the story of WWII expanding opportunity for minorities. - Internment connects backward to Gilded Age anti-Asian nativism (Unit 6) and sits in a longer pattern of wartime civil liberties crackdowns, from Lincoln suspending habeas corpus to the WWI Espionage and Sedition Acts. - For DBQs on threats and security between 1917 and 1945, internment is your best 1940s evidence that fear reshaped American society. ## FAQs ### What was internment in APUSH? Internment was the U.S. government's forced relocation and confinement of about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, carried out under Executive Order 9066 (1942) without trials or criminal charges. The CED treats it as the prime example of WWII challenging civil liberties. ### Was Japanese American internment actually about national security? The official justification was national defense, but the evidence cuts against it. No Japanese American was convicted of espionage or sabotage during the war, two-thirds of those interned were U.S. citizens, and German and Italian Americans were never rounded up en masse. Exam questions often ask you to weigh security claims against this evidence of racial prejudice. ### How is internment different from Executive Order 9066? Executive Order 9066 is the specific order FDR signed in February 1942 creating military exclusion zones. Internment is the practice that resulted, the actual removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans in camps. Order first, internment second. ### Is internment on the AP US History exam? Yes. It's named in the essential knowledge for Topic 7.12 (LO APUSH 7.12.A), it appeared on the 2018 SAQ, and it fit directly into the 2024 DBQ on how beliefs about threats shaped American society from 1917 to 1945. ### What court case upheld Japanese American internment? Korematsu v. United States (1944). 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