The Right to Steal: How the U.S. Government Enabled the Looting of Japanese Property

Imagine being told that you have just 7-10 days to pack up or sell all of your possessions, report to a brutal concentration camp, and then face indefinite prison time. That was the fate of many Japanese people residing in the United States during World War II. 

But Japanese oppression in the United States began long before the war. Throughout the 20th century, anti-Japanese sentiment was prevalent within American culture.  

Let me give just two examples. In 1900, former San Francisco mayor James Duval Phelan claimed that Japanese immigration was not simply a labor issue. He insisted it was an existential threat to the United States that was similar to the surge of immigration that partly led to the fall of Rome. In 1913, the Alien Land Law that was passed by the California legislature prevented noncitizens from owning land or long-term leases.  

Despite discriminatory attitudes and legislation, many Japanese people residing in the United States were beginning to prosper in the fishing industry, agriculture, and as owners of small businesses. By 1940, 45% of employed Japanese people on the West Coast worked in agriculture. In California, Japanese farmers virtually controlled the wholesale and retail fruit and vegetable markets. 

Unfortunately, oppressive policies against Japanese people dramatically escalated during the 1940s. In 1941, many Japanese had their bank accounts frozen. The following year, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. It allowed the Secretary of War to round up and send some 120,000 Japanese people (roughly 75,000 Japanese Americans and 45,000 Japanese nationals) to concentration camps.  

Among those who were sent to these camps, 70% were born in the United States. From 1942 to 1945, the federal government operated ten main concentration camps for Japanese and Japanese Americans. These camps were prison-like facilities, with barracks, watchtowers and armed guards, and barbed wire fencing. Those incarcerated faced an average of three years in the camps. 

Importantly, these camps were not simply oppressive. They also enabled the theft of resources previously owned by Japanese people. Following the issuance of that executive order, many Japanese people had to sell or lease their land and other assets vastly below market value. Estimates project that Japanese Americans lost approximately $3.7 billion in property and another $7.7 billion in income.  

During incarceration, properties previously owned by Japanese people were regularly looted. For instance, when internee Tomoye Takahashi and her family finally returned home after imprisonment, they found that their locked basement storage room (which stored jewelry, photos, wedding gifts, special possessions, and so on) had been burglarized and all the items were gone.  

As a result, some scholars argue that the prospect of stealing Japanese property was one of the primary motivations that led to mass Japanese incarceration. It was an effort to ‘reclaim’ the property and assets and to impoverish the Japanese and Japanese Americans, rendering them powerless in the U.S. economy. 

Richard McDaniel, January 2026.