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Canadian Internment Analysis

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When looking back on historic moments, there are always going to be questionable events. Some of these decisions may be viewed as regrettable but necessary as in the case of war. In chapter eight of the Visions textbook they explore the topic of enemy aliens, internment camps, and the RCMP during the second world war. The experience of the Japanese Canadians is particularly emphasised within the various sources used. Thus, it is evident that there are three prominent issues regarding this topic: the racism in Canada during the war, the misconceptions regarding internment, and the impact of internment on Japanese Canadians. During war and international conflicts there is bound to be tension and fear and the Second World War was no different. …show more content…

Some of these fallacies lie within the internment process itself and the experience of it. For instance, there is this notion that Japanese Canadians handled the internment without much protest. For example, in comic published in the 1940s, the Japanese Canadians are depicted as being happy rather than upset as they are lead away from the coast of British Columbia (342). Indeed, this image is misleading as a number of them were upset with this sudden move and it was those who resisted that were placed in these camps first. Sugiman discovers this during her conversation with a Japanese internment camp period survivor, “there was some young men that resisted…they were pilfered out and taken right away. They were the ones sent to the internment camps” (357). In addition to men, women were also seen as passive and not keen on initiating change. This was not the case either, as many …show more content…

It is another instance of blatant racism and suffering of others for Canada’s benefit. For white Canadian’s to ‘feel safe’ the Japanese Canadians had to endure such awful circumstances. Moreover, it is heart-breaking to learn how much these events have affected people’s lives such as David Suzuki’s, “To this day, I don’t like the way I look on television and don’t like watching myself on my own TV Programs” (340). Due to the constant racism and propaganda during the war, Suzuki is left with negative feelings towards his nationality that remain with him. Many view this ordeal as a mistake and it was on Canada’s part. It could have been handled differently or in a better fashion and it is sad that so many had to face hardship during that time. Nevertheless, there is always pressure and tension during times of war and that must be considered when viewing a moment in history such as

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Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?

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In the article, Colborn-Roxworthy focuses on the ambivalent internment camps. In 1942, The United States order hundreds of thousands Japanese Americans to relocate to camps such as the Manzanar in Inyo Country, California. The government portrayed this camps as “Better Than Hollywood, snow on mountains, amazing weather.” (Pg145) The government tried to put up a façade which was all false information hiding the cruel reality that the Japanese actually went through the dehumanization of the internment camps.

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However, with the government of Mackenzie King’s decision to undergo these interments between 1941 and 1949, it is exceptionally clear that this reputation had been shattered, especially with his decision to deport many citizens to occupied Japan starting in 1946. Rao also notes, “The novel in fact problematizes the discourses of ‘official multiculturalism’ which sanctioned Canada as a 'cultural mosaic,' and underscores how in actual fact such policy glossed over the centrality of race in multicultural Canada. Multiculturalism simply ignored ethnicity and it was used to strengthen the dominance of Canada's two major cultures.” (Rao 2004) Basically, Canada’s multicultural society

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How would you feel if one day you were told to leave your whole life behind to live in captivity just because people halfway across the world did something wrong? This horror story was all too true for the thousands of Japanese Americans alive during World War II. Almost overnight, thousands of proud Japanese Americans living on the west coast were forced to leave their homes and give up the life they knew. The United States government was not justified in the creation of Japanese internment camps because it stripped law-abiding American citizens of their rights out of unjustified fear.

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Tony Robbins once said “A decision made from fear is always the wrong decision” which is a statement that fully encapsulates the government's treatment of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. The Second World War was extremely important to Canada and therefore its citizens. Propaganda was a powerful weapon used to demonize all of the opposition, including the Japanese. However, the fear then extended to Japanese Canadian citizens who did not even have anything to do with the actions of people in Japan. The prejudices towards Japanese Canadians existed ever since they arrived in Canada but the propaganda heightened them to the point where the general public was worried they were a threat.

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Due to the increasing fear of a Japanese attack on the West Coast, Lt. General John L. Dewitt recommended that all people of Japanese descent living in America be removed to the interior of the country. In the article “An American Tragedy: The Internment of Japanese-Americans During World War II” by Norman Y. Mineta, former US Secretary of Transportation, Dewitt backed up his suggestion with rumors that “ethnic Japanese on the West Coast were signaling Japanese ships out in the Pacific ocean” and they “had stockpiled numerous rounds of ammunition and weapons” (Mineta 161). In order to combat this threat in case of enemy invasion, the camps would detain the Japanese Americans so they cannot aid the enemy. The warped logic used to imprison 110,000 people purely based on ethnic background was convincing enough to the American people that they didn’t even question

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After describing her mother’s life in multiple internment camps and the corresponding lifelong PTSD her mother suffered from, Ina queries “I wonder how many lives, just like my mother’s, the U.S. government is needlessly and cruelly damaging today for its ill-advised “family detention” program.” The author makes sure her point -the detention center is a modern internment camp- is clear by her persistent use of adjectives such as “cruelly” and “damaging” as well as using phrases like “just like my mother's.” I agree with Ina’s point; however, Ina alienates her readers by demonizing the U.S. government. While the U.S. government is the controlling force of family detention facilities, and it is important to point out that America is repeating the mistakes made in World War Two, Ina should focus on the connections between Japanese internment camps and the facility, or the horrors of the facility, rather than who is to

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Many Americans saw the internment camps through the government’s persuasion. The United States made the internment camps sound enjoyable and humane, they made documentaries showing the camps showing nothing but happy individuals when there was really a hidden fear. Matsuda opened the eyes of many Americans showing how hard it was to live in the camps and how mentally cruel it could be. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, through family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment

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December 7th of 1941 America would face a horrific scene in their own homeland, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor with their Air Force not once but twice. That same day President John F. Kennedy would decide to place the Japanese Americans, living in the country at the time, in internment camps. The civilians would not have a clue what they would be put up against, now they would have to encounter various obstacles to make sure they would be able to survive. “The camps were prisons, with armed soldiers around the perimeters, barbed wire. and controls over every aspect of life”(Chang).

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For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese-American citizens endured poor living conditions are poor treatment by their military guards, along with the rest of the country. A very important reason in proving that President Roosevelt 's

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That shows the lengths that the Canadians went through to try to ensure the depopulation of the Japanese Canadians. At one point in the novel, she goes on to explain the difference between the internment of the Japanese Canadian and the Japanese Americans. "I hate to admit it,’ she said, ‘but for all we hear about the States, Canada's capacity for racism seems even worse.’ ‘Worse?’ ‘The American Japanese were interned as we were in Canada, and sent off to concentration camps, but their property wasn't

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747 Words | 3 Pages

Walker discussion of the division of racial battalions in World War 1, also creates the concept of just how devalued the blacks, Japanese and Indians were during this time and how being white meant power and bravery during the war. These examples that Walker gives help build on the previous assumptions that World War 1 did not create racism, but enforced racism that was already happening within the Canadian

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506 Words | 3 Pages

Additionally, during World War 2, Japanese Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in internment camps (Yarhi and Pellerin 23). This mass displacement had a profound and lasting impact on Japanese Canadians, their sense of identity, and their heritage. For many Japanese Canadians, the internment experience was a traumatic and disruptive event that forced them to leave everything they knew and loved. They were stripped of their dignity and right to move freely. As a result of internment camps, many were forced to abandon their cultural traditions, also the camps made it difficult for Japanese Canadians to maintain connections with their communities and cultural institutions.

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1499 Words | 6 Pages

After the bombings occurred the Canadian government assumed that the Japanese living in Canada were loyal to Japan, which could can negatively affect Canada. If this event would have happened in the in the past 35 years it

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Thesis statement: Though many speculate that the act of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) while not doing so on Europe (Germany and Italy) was racially motivated, racism played little to no role in these bombings. The United States of America and her allies were willing to end World War II at any cost, had the atomic bombs been available they would have been deployed in Europe. In the 1940’s there is no doubt that the United States of America was engulfed by mass anti-Japanese hysteria which inevitably bled over into America’s foreign policy. During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human.

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