Existing comment:
Dorothea Lange photograph of internees lined up to vote for the Tanforan Assembly Center Advisory Council, June 16, 1942
Although the civil rights of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-descended U.S. citizens were violated when they were forced into internment camps during World War II, internees with citizenship remained allowed to vote while incarcerated. Non-citizens could also vote in some camp elections -- a first for Japanese immigrants, who lacked voting rights because they could not naturalize. After the war, citizenship and voting rights gradually opened to Asian immigrants. |