Essay On Japanese Internment Camps Tax

After the Civil War and before WWII immigrants and migrants were treated like third class citizens. The influx of Chinese and other foreign laborers led to ethnic tensions in California, especially as gold grew scarce. In 1850, the California legislature enacted the Foreign Miners Tax, which levied a monthly $20 tax on each foreign miner. The tax compelled many Chinese to stop prospecting for gold. The Foreign Miners Tax was the opening act in a campaign by native-born white Americans to restrict the entry of Chinese laborers into California to compete with them for jobs and wages. In 1882, the campaign to restrict immigration to California reached its first climax with the federal Chinese Exclusion Act, which effectively halted Chinese

Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States. The fear of the Japanese was tangible. Many believed, whether or not they were born here, that all Japanese were spies or they were going to do some kind of harm to the U.S. The Japanese were rounded up everywhere and put into internment camps. These places were almost as bad as the concentration camps in Germany. Ten camps were completed in the Midwest. They lived in tarpaper barracks, dined together in community mess halls, and the children were expected to attend school. The government hoped that the interns would farm the land but the soil was too arid and it could not be done. The men were offered work for $5 a day. They also knew if they tried to escaped, they would be shot. On the whole, however, life in the relocation centers was not easy. The camps were often too cold in the winter and too hot in the