Japanese Internment Camps Essay

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February 19, 1942 Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D, Roosevelt. This same executive order ruined the lives of thousands of Americans of Japanese descent up and down the west coast. These people were put in internment camps for a war that they had no part of but for any Japanese American on the west coast internment was inevitable. On December 7 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes flew onto a naval base, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack destroyed or damaged hundreds of american machinery and left 2,400 civilians dead and many injured. The following day America declared war on Japan. The next year the United States was still at war with Japan and Executive Order 9066 that authorized the mass removal of Japanese …show more content…

Communist were a greater threat the Japanese were yet the only group that was interned were the Japanese Americans. Also a presidential commission in 1982 identified race prejudice as one of the causes of internment. At the time of the unfortunate internment of the Japanese Americans the United States was also at war with other countries such as Italy and Germany who were just as much as threats as Japan was. Though, no Americans from Italian and German descent was put in internment was camps. “Germans and Italians are “white.” Color seems to be the only possible reason why thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry are in concentration camps. Anyway, there are no Italian-American, or German-American citizens in such camps” (Document E). To further explain, German and Italians Americans had just has much reason for their loyalty to the United STates to be questioned as the Japanese Americans. The government was quick to suspect fifth column activity with Japanese Americans but never though, because of their race, that German and Italian Americas could do anything to put the country at risk. How can such an action such as the internment of thousands of Americans be justified by time of war if that internment was motivated by bias opinions on a race who did not commit any crimes but were punished anyway? Because of the expressed actions of race prejudice internment was not