How would you feel if one day you were told to leave your whole life behind to live in captivity just because people halfway across the world did something wrong? This horror story was all too true for the thousands of Japanese Americans alive during World War II. Almost overnight, thousands of proud Japanese Americans living on the west coast were forced to leave their homes and give up the life they knew. The United States government was not justified in the creation of Japanese internment camps because it stripped law-abiding American citizens of their rights out of unjustified fear. Furthermore, the United States should do more to compensate the families of those impacted by internment because the recompense provided initially was minimal and should be considered an affront to the memory of the victims. Prior to World War II, the 127,000 Japanese-Americans along America’s west coast (Japanese American Relocation and Internment Camps) were considered just another immigrant group coming to America searching for a better life. However, with the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, this perception soon saw a drastic change. The attack on the US Naval base on December 7th, 1941 left many casualties in its wake. In total over 2,400 were dead, and over 1,000 were injured in the onslaught; the attack also saw the destruction of eight battleships, three light cruisers and destroyers, and four other naval vessels (Civil Rights, Japanese Americans). With the Japanese
17 May 2017. Summary: This article explains in general terms what happened during the Japanese internment camps. It mostly focuses on how the government justified the internment, and how the Japanese died in the camps due to the poor living conditions, along with the children’s living conditions. Evaluation: This article is a good source provided by PBS.
3) Japs keep on moving: WRITE UP: Immediately after the Pearl Harbour attack, the Canadian Federal Government overnment feared that the Japanese Canadians could I as spies for Japan. Prejudices against their culture grew due public pressure. Thus, Japanese Internment camps were created to house these citizens during World War 2. At the time, there was no human right legislation to protect people from discrimination.
This war between the Japanese and Americans wasn't too beneficial for the Japanese Americans back at home, for they were taken out of their homes, into camps because of others doing. Japanese internment camps were an unjust policy in U.S. History because it was based on racial profiling, it subjected Japanese-Americans to squalid conditions, and it violated citizens’ 4th Amendment rights of search and seizure. Internment camps
Akiko Kurose, who was 16 and attending a Seattle high school at the time, described when, after the Pearl Harbor attack, “one of the teachers said, ‘You people bombed Pearl Harbor’”, referencing Akiko’s Japanese heritage (Document 1). If, indeed, this was the general feeling of all non-Japanese Americans, than it is easy to see how amassed public hatred could lead to the internment of the hated. The government was even aware of the minimal threat posed by the interned—The Munson Report, delivered to President Roosevelt by his Special Representative of the States Department, Charles Munson, has such a statement as follows, “There is no Japanese ‘problem’ on the Coast. There will be no armed uprising of Japanese” (Document 4). And Mary Tsukamoto, who was an American of Japanese heritage, was forced in 1942 to an internment camp with her husband and child, leaving their strawberry farm behind, described her shock, “We couldn't believe that they would need all of us to quit our work to produce our fruit, food for victory... and then be put away”(Document 3).
This report, “Personal Justice Denied: The Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians’’, focused on what had lead up to the decision to intern Japanese Americans and what happened afterward. In an excerpt released from the report reads, “Widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan” (Document F). In other words, the idea of interning Japanese Americans came from fear and anger. This was an emotional decision, not a strategic one because Japanese Americans were not a danger to the United States and the citizens. Above all, the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942 was an emotional decision done out of fear and
In 1942 due to the attack on pearl harbor all japanese americans were transported into internment camps along the west coast. And little did the japanese know that the internment camp won't be what the government said it was gonna be due to most of the time there in these cramped little rooms with a whole bunch of people they might not have known. Most of the time the japanese americans could not leave the camp or even had curfews within the camp. The internment of japanese americans was not necessary response to the attacks on pearl harbor because of the cultural ,political and social impact on washington state.
Many Americans saw the internment camps through the government’s persuasion. The United States made the internment camps sound enjoyable and humane, they made documentaries showing the camps showing nothing but happy individuals when there was really a hidden fear. Matsuda opened the eyes of many Americans showing how hard it was to live in the camps and how mentally cruel it could be. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, through family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment
Many historians agree that this event was undoubtedly unconstitutional and an infringement of basic human rights. The forced incarceration of Japanese
Due to the increasing fear of a Japanese attack on the West Coast, Lt. General John L. Dewitt recommended that all people of Japanese descent living in America be removed to the interior of the country. In the article “An American Tragedy: The Internment of Japanese-Americans During World War II” by Norman Y. Mineta, former US Secretary of Transportation, Dewitt backed up his suggestion with rumors that “ethnic Japanese on the West Coast were signaling Japanese ships out in the Pacific ocean” and they “had stockpiled numerous rounds of ammunition and weapons” (Mineta 161). In order to combat this threat in case of enemy invasion, the camps would detain the Japanese Americans so they cannot aid the enemy. The warped logic used to imprison 110,000 people purely based on ethnic background was convincing enough to the American people that they didn’t even question
The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was not justified. After Pearl Harbor, many Americans were scared of the Japanese Americans because they could sabotage the U.S. military. To try and solve the fear President Franklin D Roosevelt told the army in Executive order 9066 to relocate all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. They were relocated to detention centers in the desert. Many of them were in the detention centers for three years.
To be stripped of freedom for the sake of accommodating those who are prejudiced against one’s heritage remains an unjustifiable action. Although oppression remains a sensitive issue in society, one must not silence the history of its existence as humanity must learn from its mistakes. Such silencing was experienced by the Japanese citizens of Canada as their freedoms were replaced with discrimination. Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941 ¹, the Canadian government systematically removed over 21 000 Japanese Canadians from their businesses and homes and forced them into internment camps from 1941-1949 ². Thus, the methodical location of Japanese Canadians into internment camps during World War II was unjustified.
The relocation of Japanese into internment camps was necessary for national security and protection for the people, but it ignored the fact that many Japanese citizens and noncitizens alike had to leave much of their homes, valuables, and assets behind, lived in horrible conditions in the camps, isolated them from everyone, and disrupted their lives greatly. Simply, relocating 120,000 people to a different location was overboard. Military personnels at the defense bases and factories could easily restrain any people from approaching the bases and facilities. They could also tell the Japanese people or Asian race in general apart from the white Americans since anybody of Japanese ancestry was easily recognizable. Moreover, every citizen was already told advised to report any suspicious persons or activities to the government for investigation after the incident at Pearl Harbor.
December 7th of 1941 America would face a horrific scene in their own homeland, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor with their Air Force not once but twice. That same day President John F. Kennedy would decide to place the Japanese Americans, living in the country at the time, in internment camps. The civilians would not have a clue what they would be put up against, now they would have to encounter various obstacles to make sure they would be able to survive. “The camps were prisons, with armed soldiers around the perimeters, barbed wire. and controls over every aspect of life”(Chang).
On December 11, 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese, more than 360 Japanese warplanes. They came and bombed our harbor killing more than 5,000 people. After the bombing America had a suspicion that maybe there was a spy, so they put more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans in an internment camps. I feel that internment camps were not necessary though because of that action we were thought of as racist, harsh, and dis loyal. I feel that because of those internment camps we were looked at as racist because we put humans in a internment camp just because they were of a different race.
Thesis statement: Though many speculate that the act of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) while not doing so on Europe (Germany and Italy) was racially motivated, racism played little to no role in these bombings. The United States of America and her allies were willing to end World War II at any cost, had the atomic bombs been available they would have been deployed in Europe. In the 1940’s there is no doubt that the United States of America was engulfed by mass anti-Japanese hysteria which inevitably bled over into America’s foreign policy. During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human.