The tragic events of Pearl Harbor dictated a response from the American people. The nation was trying its hardest to remain neutral; however, it no longer seemed avoidable. Directly after the attack happened, racial tensions rose towards the Japanese and the course of World War II took a sharp turn.
“A date which will live in infamy.” President Franklin Roosevelt coined this phrase in an effort to show sympathy towards those who died and to inspire the people to fight back. December 7, 1941 was a normal Sunday when, all of a sudden, Japanese planes attacked the American territory of Hawaii. The attack surprised the country, especially the unprepared Pearl Harbor. Along with killing more than 2,300 innocent Americans, it destroyed the USS Arizona and capsized the USS Oklahoma, sank or beached
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To increase security, Roosevelt made it nearly impossible for a Japanese citizen to immigrant to America. Additionally, 110,000 innocent American citizens of Japanese heritage were forced to move into internment camps in the midwest and west. Families were stripped of their homes and relocated, as if they had been the one’s to carry out the attack on Pearl Harbor. In camps described as worse than prisons, hundreds of people shared a single toilet building, five to six people lived in a 25 by 20 foot room, and they were fed poor quality food in crowded cafeterias. The older Japanese immigrants had limited privileges, whereas their American-born children were granted the positions of authority. “The land of the free” turned into a land of undeserved ridicule and confinement for many Japanese, and their descendants still experience the same anger and disapproval. Along with the racial tensions came numerous men and women who volunteered to join the army. The epidemic of patriotism spread throughout the country as the people were unified by a common enemy