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Japanese-American Prejudice Essay

543 Words3 Pages

The relocation of the Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor had a major role of prejudice in it. Even though the majority of them had been born in the United States and showed no signs of disloyalty to the country, they were still blamed for the bombing and sent to camps to be watched and guarded. Many parts throughout the story shows signs of prejudice acts being used towards the Japanese-Americans. For example, after Jeanne’s father was taken away for questioning, the rest of her family and many other oriental families were forced to move to Boyle Heights in downtown Los Angeles where people weren’t that nice to them, for the text reads, “This was the first time I had felt outright hostility from a Caucasion… Public attitudes toward the …show more content…

Next, precautions to keep the Japanese-Americans enclosed are a little extreme as shown in the text when it says, “We drove past a barbed wire fence, through a gate…” (pg. 19). To explain, the government was making sure that none of the Japanese people being forced to live there, would try to escape. This is a prejudice act because again, they have no evidence that shows any of the Japanese-Americans who lived in the United States had anything to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, yet they are enclosing them in these camps with barbed wire fences to ensure they don’t leave during the duration of the war. Lastly, while all Japanese-Americans in the west coast were forced to evacuate, they were the only race that was considered an enemy and was forced to leave and sent to camps. This is shown when the text reads, “In court, the racial bias was challenged again. Why were no German-Americans evacuated, it was asked, or Americans of Italian descent? Weren’t these nations our enemies too?”

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