Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place."

Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction between internment, which is being confined usually for preventive or political reasons, and imprisonment, which is being closely confined as a punishment for crime.

Internment also refers to the practice of neutral countries in time of war in detaining belligerent armed forces and equipment in their territories under the Second Hague Convention.

Early civilizations such as Assyria used forced resettlement of populations as a means of controlling territory, but it was not until much later in the late 19th and 20th centuries that records exist of groups of civilian non-combatants being concentrated into large prison camps.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights restricts the use of internment. Article 9 states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

Japanese Americans (日系米国人, Nikkei Beikokujin^?) are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades, it have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,304,286, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity. In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were found in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702.

People from Japan began migrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924 banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese.

Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (森田 沢之 Morita Noriyuki) (June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005) was an American actor of Japanese descent who was well known for playing the roles of Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the The Karate Kid movie series, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.

Pat Morita was born in Isleton, California. He developed spinal tuberculosis at the age of two and spent the bulk of the next nine years in Northern Californian hospitals, including the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. For long periods he was wrapped in a full-body cast and was told he would never walk.

After a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine, Pat finally learned to walk again at the age of 11. When he walked out of the hospital, an FBI agent escorted him directly to his Japanese American family, which had been sent to an internment camp to be detained for the duration of World War II.

He was transported from the hospital directly to the Gila River camp in Arizona to join them. It was at this time that he met a Catholic priest from whom he would later take his stage name, "Pat". For a time after the war, the family operated Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California. Teenage "Nori" would entertain customers with jokes and serve as master of ceremonies for group dinners. Later, he worked as a data entry clerk for the State of California and at Aerojet-General Corporation near Sacramento. In the early 1960s, he started his career as a stand-up comedian known as The Hip Nip, performing in local nightclubs and bars. He also spent time as a member of the improvisational comedy troupe, The Groundlings.^[when?]

George Hosato Takei (武井 穂郷, Takei Hosato^?, /təˈkeɪ/tə-KAY; April 20, 1937) is a Japanese American actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise in the television series Star Trek. He is a proponent of gay rights and active in state and local politics as well as continuing his acting career. He has won several awards and accolades in his work on human rights and Japanese American relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum.

Takei was born in Los Angeles, California to Japanese American parents, Fumiko Emily (née Nakamura) and Takekuma Norman Takei, who worked in real estate. His father was an Anglophile, and named him George after George VI of the United Kingdom, whose coronation took place in 1937. In 1942, the Takei family was forced to live in the horse stables of Santa Anita Park before being sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center for internment in Arkansas. The family was later transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. He and his family returned to Los Angeles at the end of World War II. He attended Mount Vernon Junior High School, where he served as student body president, and Los Angeles High School. He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 379 of the Koyasan Buddhist Temple.