Japanese Internment Camps Essay

Alex Uhrich

Mrs. Price

ACC US History

07 April 2023

Japanese Internment Camps in the US

At the beginning of World War Two the United States was uncertain whether they were going to join the war or not. The US was in a state of isolation following WWI but felt threatened by the Japanese because they were struggling economically after the embargo policy set by the US. The Japanese were having some success in the battles they were fighting in places such as Guam and were continuing to scare the US. The first big step the Japanese took was when they bombed pearl harbor which motivated Franklin D. Roosevelt to pass executive order 9066. Executive order 9066 forced all Japanese Americans in the western regions of the US to be sent into internment

According to the National WWII Museum the US government cited national security as the reason for sending all of these Japanese Americans to internment camps because the American public were fueled to be anti-Japanese because of the Japanese victories in Guam, Malaya, and The Philippines. Another way the government showed that what they were doing was to “prevent espionage”. As a way of doing so President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19th 1942. The order was passed and the camps were created so Japanese Americans would not be allowed the freedom to do as they please meaning they couldn't even go anywhere so this made the American citizens feel safer because there were no Japanese to spy on them if they were in internment camps. Overall it was ruled that, “relocation and internment was justified during circumstances of “emergency and peril ""(Students of History), as a way of saying both national security and preventing espionage were ways the US government justified sending Japanese Americans to internment camps was acceptable during the

On December 18 1944 two years after the Japanese people were sent to the internment camps a Japanese American man by the name of Fred Korematsu challenged the legality of Executive Order 9066. In Korematsu vs. The United States it was voted in a 6-3 decision that the creation of the internment camps was legal because it was a “military necessity and had nothing to do with race”(United States Courts). Though the case was decided that what was being done was a wartime necessity, over 40 years later Korematsu vs. The United States was reopened in 1988. Korematsu’s conviction was overturned and an apology was given by The United States. To try and make up for the wrongful sending of the Japanese Americans to the internment camps, “congress attempted to apologize for the action by awarding each surviving intern $20,000”(ushistory.org). The US government eventually having to apologize for what they did truly shows that what they did during the time they knew was wrong. During the Japanese internment the Japanese people were asked two questions according to The National World War Two Museum, if they would reject all allegiance to the Japanese emperor and if they were willing to serve in the US military. About 8,500 answered no to both questions and were labeled as disloyal. The disloyal ones were separated from the