During World War II, Minidoka War Relocation Center was one of 10 war relocation centers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Over 9000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who were mostly lived in the Pacific Northwest were incarcerated in Minidoka.
The Pearl Harbor attack intensified existing hostility towards Japanese Americans. As wartime hysteria mounted, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 forcing over 120,000 West Coast persons of Japanese ancestry (Nikkei) to leave their homes, jobs, and lives behind, forcing them into one of ten prison camps spread across the nation because of their ethnicity.