National Education Center
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Immigrant | A person who has left his or her native country to live in another country, usually permanently. The US government defines an immigrant as an alien who has been granted the right to reside permanently and work without restrictions in the US. |
| Immigration Act of 1924 | Legislation that ended all further Japanese immigration to the United States. |
| Incarceration | The state of being in prison, or being confined. |
| Incarceration centers | Also, incarceration camps. Places at which the US War Relocation Authority (WRA) detained people of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens, during World War II. These purpose-built facilities were surrounded by barbed wire fences and patrolled by armed guards. Residents could not leave without permission. The WRA also called these facilities “relocation centers.” The incarceration centers were: Manzanar and Tule Lake in California; Poston and Gila River in Arizona; Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas; Minidoka in Idaho; Heart Mountain in Wyoming; Granada in Colorado; and Topaz in Utah. |
| Infantry | A branch of an army composed of soldiers trained, armed and equipped to fight on foot. |
| Internment Camps | Camps administered by the Justice Department for the detention of enemy aliens (not US citizens) deemed dangerous during World War II. Most of the several thousand people in these camps were Issei and Kibei who had been rounded up after the attack on Pearl Harbor because they were perceived as “dangerous.” “Internment camps” is often used interchangeably with “incarceration camps” or “incarceration centers.” However, such use is inaccurate, because the term “internment” refers specifically to the confinement of enemy aliens during wartime, and in the situation of the Japanese in America during World War II, two-thirds of those imprisoned were US citizens and not aliens. |
| Interrogate | To question formally and systematically. |
| Inu | Japanese word for dog. The term was commonly used in the incarceration centers to refer to those of Japanese descent who were suspected of informing authorities about “suspicious” individuals held there. |
| Invasion | A hostile entry of an armed force into a country’s territory, especially with the intention of conquering it. |
| Issei | First-generation Japanese who immigrated to the United States. |