Japanese Internment Camps - Persuasive Argument On December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base located near Pearl Harbor at Honolulu, Hawaii. After the bombing, Japanese Americans were sent off to internment camps due to President Franklin Roosevelt’s decision on releasing Executive Order 9066. Even though the U.S government’s decision was meant to benefit the country’s safety from more attacks by the Japanese, my strong belief is that Executive Order 9066 was not justifiable towards Americans.
Imprisoning thousands of Japanese and disciplining them for the actions of a small group, is inappropriate and unfair. Due to the internment camps, many family members were lost and many families were torn apart. There was absolutely no justification in the American Government taking away the Japanese’s civil rights and flipping their whole lives
The people of Japanese internment camps during World War II were falsely imprisoned and were treated poorly for no reason. No person that was forced into internment was found and charged of helping the Japanese in any way, thus making the internment camps useless. In the memoir Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes the injustice committed against the 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry who were interred by America during World War II. One of the many unjust acts the Americans forced upon the Japanese was the horrible living in internment. Many times throughout the book, Jeanne talked about the problems, such as: little to no privacy, rotten food, inexperienced chefs, crowded living arrangement, broken bathrooms, little supplies and dysfunctional hospitals.
On December 11, 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese, more than 360 Japanese warplanes. They came and bombed our harbor killing more than 5,000 people. After the bombing America had a suspicion that maybe there was a spy, so they put more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans in an internment camps. I feel that internment camps were not necessary though because of that action we were thought of as racist, harsh, and dis loyal. I feel that because of those internment camps we were looked at as racist because we put humans in a internment camp just because they were of a different race.
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.
A common argument against the opinion that the Japanese American internment was clearly violating the Habeas Corpus, the 4th Amendment and the 14th Amendment is that the President himself issued an order to prevent a person who seems to be a threat to the country from leaving a military area. The President, who wholeheartedly makes decisions with only the welfare of the entirety of the United States of America and it’s citizens. That may be true but it was not necessary to hold these innocent patriotic citizens for almost a full year. There was no evidence pertaining against them nor was their any trail that determined any of the thousand of Japanese Americans to be guilty. The President does specify at the beginning of his order that during
Internment camps caused the Japanese to lose their house, jobs, and businesses. It could be said that the reason for the Japanese internment was to limit Japanese Americans from supporting the Japanese military by spying, however, the internment happened over five months after the attack, pointing that the Executive Order 9066 was more determined by racial bias towards the Japanese people.
The internment of Japanese-Americans was justified because there were Japanese suspects. Between ten internment camps in Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas, about 250-300 people in each camp were suspects under surveillance. Only around 50-60 people were actually considered dangerous. “It is easy to get on the suspect list, merely a speech in favor of Japan being sufficient to land one there” (Munson 2). Clearly, America was taking extreme precautions.
The incarceration of Japanese Americans was unjust because the internment was racially biased, there was no evidence that Japanese-Americans were going to commit acts of espionage and sabotage, and the government
The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was not justified. After Pearl Harbor, many Americans were scared of the Japanese Americans because they could sabotage the U.S. military. To try and solve the fear President Franklin D Roosevelt told the army in Executive order 9066 to relocate all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. They were relocated to detention centers in the desert. Many of them were in the detention centers for three years.
The Japanese Internment camps were a product of discrimination. This is the same for the Concentration Camps in Europe. One would cause the deaths of millions of people. The other would cause the government to apologise to the people in the camps, and give 20,000 dollars in reparations. Executive Order 9066 was one of the reasons that Internment camps were out in place.
Japanese internment in the 1940's is a part of our history. There are different opinions as to whether or not the Japanese American internment was Constitutional. Japanese American citizens were forced to move, abandon their homes and businesses, and live in camps that were just little more than prisons. The catalyst to this internment was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor is the naval base located near Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu.
The internment violated many civil liberties, and it has been called the most flagrant violation of rights in U.S. history. The order was made under the pretense of national security. The order was to prevent Japanese from spying, and it was supposed to protect the Japanese-Americans from harm. Many politicians knew that it was unconstitutional,
Some Japanese-Americans died in the camps, because of lack of medical care, and food shorted.” “The soldiers shot them if they did not follow the rules or orders the camp had.” “As it states on www.ushistory.org “In 1944, two and a half years after signing executive order 9066, Fourth-term President Franklin D. Roosevelt resigned the order, the last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945.” “In 1988 the congress paid each survivor of the camps twenty thousand dollars.” “It is estimated that seventy three million dollars people are still getting their money for the violation of their freedom.”
Japanese immigration was already at an all time high before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, there were already cultural, economic, political, and social factors that would lead to the Japanese American internment. The Pearl Harbor attack essentially served as the “spark” to the Japanese American internment as it gave a reason why they should proceed with the interment. Although there were many factors that led to the Japanese American internment, the U.S. government was not justified in its actions.
