History Of Japanese American Internment Camps During Ww2

On the early morning of December 7th, 1941, Japan bombed the U.S naval base at Pearl Harbor. American fear of Japanese espionage would soon lead to the internment of over 110,000 Japanese-American citizens on the west coast of the U.S. The internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was not justified because their rights were stripped from them, they were forced to face unnecessary conditions, and the reasons they were interned were racists and unconstitutional.
The U.S government used racist and unconstitutional reasons to intern the Japanese-Americans. The U.S. government incarcerated over 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor (Estes). This demonstrates how the Japanese were interned purely based on their background. Some had never even been to Japan. In the early 1900's, increased racism resulted in Japanese children being segregated from American students in public schools in California ("Japanese Internment in America"). This demonstrates how the Japanese experienced discrimination even before the Executive Order 9066. There was not a single documented case of espionage carried out by a Japanese-American citizen (Estes). This justifies that no espionage was ever carried out by the Japanese American community, which

Sanitation in the camps were dreadful. One inmate of the internment camps recalled, "When the wind blows, the sand goes in the kitchen, in pans, and the hot rice." (Noonan). This demonstrates how the camps were extremely unsanitary. Through this example, it shows how the Japanese had to suffer severe conditions. Skilled workers earned $16 per month, while unskilled workers were paid $12 per month (Noonan). Workers also received very low pay. Multiple families were forced to live in one barrack. This example, once again, illustrates how the Japanese had to suffer severe conditions in the internment