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Essay On Japanese Internment Camps In The Scarlet Letter

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On December 7, 1941, imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without warning. From this day on, Americans feared another attack from Japan. In response, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that forced Japanese Americans into internment camps, these actions were influenced by lobbyist. In addition, the attack on Pearl Harbor was used as justification for his action. In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the main protagonist Hester Prynne is charged with adultery. Hester is the only person to be charged, but there many in the town that have also committed adultery. The Japanese Americans and Hester Prynne were both singled out and persecuted wrongfully.

In Puritan society during the 17th century, the popular belief was that their town was to be a symbol of perfection to all others. To uphold this belief the Puritans punished …show more content…

Many Japanese American men joined the military. These soldiers were not allowed to fight on the Pacific Front, so they proved themselves on German Front. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was an all Japanese group and they were well decorated for their deeds in Germany and Italy (History.com Staff). In The Scarlet Letter, Hester faced the humiliation of her sin head on. She did want to bear the guilt of her sin, so she chose to be open with it. Eventually she reveals the character that is more evil than her. “‘Be it sin or no,’ said Hester Prynne bitterly, as she still gazed after him, ‘I hate the man’...’Yes, I hate him!’ repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. ‘He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!’” ( Hawthorne 138). This quote shows her secondary reaction. She expresses that although she has sinned that there is a greater sinner among them. She reveals that the real problem is Chillingworth and not

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Overall, the Japanese were interned during World War one because they were seen as a hypothetical threat to U.S security. The U.S viewed the Japanese population as saboteurs and more specifically, a threat national security. In document B of the Japanese internment DBQ it describes how the U.S racistly generalized the Japanese as Saboteurs who would easily destroy anything in their sight. With the mass hysteria in regards to the stereotype, the U.S too more precaution in regards to the Japanese community and imprisoned them. Moreover, another reason the Japanese were interned is because the Japanese only posed a threat to American security on the West coast.

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Force of the Strong, Abuse of the Weak “The Japanese roasted their captives over fires, poured kerosene over them and set them on fire, burned them with chemicals, tortured them or cut them to pieces”(“Japan Captures Nanjing”). Like this brutality and the use of fear and coercion on prisoners in WWII be seen reflected in William Golding 's novel, “The Lord of the Flies”. This fear and brutality can be recognized in many WWII events including the Nazi Concentration Camps, The Rape of Nanking, the American Japanese Internment Camps and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In these first three events brutal torture, rape and removal of prisoner’s personal possessions all occurred.

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Jayna Marie Lorenzo May 23, 2023 Historiography Paper Professor Kevin Murphy Historiography Final: Japanese Internment “A date which will live in infamy,” announced President Roosevelt during a press conference after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Due to the military threat by the Japanese on the West Coast, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering for the incarceration of all people of Japanese descent. The Order forced about 120,000 Japanese Americans into relocation centers across the United States where they remained in captivity until the war ended.

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I do not think that Roosevelt 's actions were justified in the internment of Japanese-American citizens, because there was very little evidence that the Japanese citizens were a threat to the rest of America. The Executive Order 9066 led to a lot of changes for Japanese-American citizens. The Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Roosevelt two weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and this authorized the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." This affected the Japanese-American citizens because the military then defined the entire West Coast, which was home to the majority of Japanese-Americans, as a military area. This then led them to relocate to internment camps, built by the U.S military in scattered locations around the country.

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The following events caused the tensions to raise between Japan and The United States of America which led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Internment of Japanese Americans. They are the Rape of Nanking and the sudden stop of U.S exports to Japan. In the 1930s Japan, had become very nationalistic, militaristic, and desired for more land to expand the population. So, Japan went to China and conquered Manchuria, Northern China, then most of China, and eventually Southeast Asia. This help Japan get out of its economic crisis but soon a very tragic and horrendous even took place.

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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.

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February 19, 1942. About two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the legal internment of Americans with Japanese ancestry living on the west coast. FDR and the U.S. Army claimed it was out of military necessity and to defend California, Oregon, and Washington from another Japanese attack. There were no exceptions. Lawyers, doctors, business people, and even wounded Japanese American war veterans were sent to internment camps (Marrin 97-98).

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Although the community originally knew Hester as a disgrace, the town’s opinion of her changed over time as she began to do work for the poor and needy. After this shift in the town’s view of Hester, “many people refused to interpret the scarlet [letter] by its original signification” (111). Instead of Hester’s scarlet letter serving as a reminder of her scandalous sin, her peers “ had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as a token . . . of [Hester’s] many good deeds” (111). She became known for her charity and generosity, which caused the civilians to overlook her sinful behavior.

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Weeks before executive order 9066 was put into motion the United States Navy removed Japanese citizens from Terminal Island which is near the port of Los Angeles, and on December 7th 1941 just hours after the happenings of pearl harbor the Federal Bureau of investigation or more commonly called the FBI rounded up 1,291 japanese community and religious leaders arresting

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This shows that Hester does not necessarily need to worry about what the people of Boston think of her or how she needs to redeem herself in order to fit back into the society. When Hawthorne says “The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end!” he is showing how there is no way for Hester to change her society. She should have love and joy, but instead she is faced with guilt, which leads to her downfall. Along with this, Hawthorne demonstrates how the people of Boston are actually the sinners while Hester and Dimmesdale represent the Angel and the Saint of the city.

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and she made a horrible mistake which in the end became the best mistake she ever made. In the beginning of the book Hester Prynne had committed adultery and had a baby because of it which caused people to look down upon her and they made her wear a scarlet A on her clothes to show that she committed adultery. Hester instantly regretted the decision she made, but she never knew how this decision could impact her life for the better. She became emotionally stronger, she became a wiser and

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It ties into explore by the government making the decision of signing Executive Order 9066. The government explored new ways of keeping any Japanese spies contained in internment campss. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese experienced racism and exclusion of other people. Signs were put on stores and neighborhoods saying, “No Japs!” Also, military was encountered on a daily basis for the Japanese while in internment camp.

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The townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”

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Japanese Americans were interned to camps for multiple reasons. Such as, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war hysteria caused from the Japanese. The president declaring war on Japan had a huge part into internment too. During world war 2 between 110,000 and 120,000 people with Japanese ancestry were forced relocation into the Western interior of the United States. They stayed there from 1942 to 1945 due to executive order 9066.

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Throughout the novel, Hester is fraught by the Puritan society and her suffering is an effect of how evil society is. Hester continues to believe that the crime she committed was not wrong and she should not be punished for it. Her desire to protect and love Dimmesdale, turn her into a stronger person and become a heroine in the book. Although society still views her as a “naughty baggage” (Hawthorne 73) and is punished for her wrongdoing, Hester never thought to take revenge on them, yet she gives everything she has to the unfortunate and leaves herself with very little. She continues to stay positive no matter what society has for her.

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