The Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II & the Role of Attorneys at the Relocation Centers

During World War II, over 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of whom were US citizens, were forcibly removed from their homes in California, Washington, and Oregon, and imprisoned in relocation centers, small towns surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. The War Relocation Authority, the government agency created by FDR that oversaw the mass relocation and internment, appointed a project attorney for each of the 10 camps. These white attorneys served the conflicted position of both advising the project director and running a legal aid for the Japanese American prisoners. Joining me in this episode is legal historian Eric L. Muller , the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law and author of Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe: Complicity and Conscience in America's World War II Concentration Camps . Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag , composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “ Longing for Japan ,” by srento, licensed for use via Pond5. The episode image is “ Lone Pine, Calif. Apr. 1942. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry arriving by train and a…