In By Order of the President, author Greg Robinson examines the controversial topic of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to relocate more than 100,000 Japanese-American citizens into internment camps for the duration of World War Two using Executive Order 9066. Preceding studies have sought to explain Roosevelt’s decision as a sensible reaction to bureaucratic pressure from military and political leaders on the West Coast, who feared the control Japanese-Americans and pro-Japanese held. Despite the vast examination of the Japanese Internment dilemma, Robinson argues that scholars have not sufficiently examined Roosevelt’s role in creating and implementing the internment policy. Robinson argues that typical narratives tend to diminish
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.
Roosevelt, “this order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to "relocation centers" further inland – resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans.” This order forced many Japanese to leave their homes and businesses and live in cramped, unsanitary internment camps. Where racial prejudice was being used by the United States to rationale Executive Order 9066. This order rationale was based on the government's belief; with no true evidence, that Japanese-Americans were potential spies and saboteurs, and it allowed for the mass internment of innocent Japanense-American citizens based on their ancestry where over 120,000 innocent Japanese-American lives were forced to move in internment war camps.
Jayna Marie Lorenzo May 23, 2023 Historiography Paper Professor Kevin Murphy Historiography Final: Japanese Internment “A date which will live in infamy,” announced President Roosevelt during a press conference after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Due to the military threat by the Japanese on the West Coast, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering for the incarceration of all people of Japanese descent. The Order forced about 120,000 Japanese Americans into relocation centers across the United States where they remained in captivity until the war ended.
Reactions to these internment camps varied between those in the camps, or have friends in the camp, and those on the outside of the camps. A Fort Minor song, that was written based upon an interviewed internee, stated, “They gave Ken, a couple of days to get his whole life packed in two bags just two bags, couldn’t even pack his clothes. Some folks didn't even have a suitcase, to pack anything in. So two trash bags, was all they gave them…”(Fort Minor). During this time of the evacuation process, FBI agents raided people’s homes, violating their rights to their own property as well as their privacy.
The Japanese Internment Camps were United States controlled concentration camps during WWII for the accused Japanese-Americans, urged on by the paranoia citizens and ended by the Nisei’s loyalty. The establishment began by the relocation order, also known as Executive Order 9066. All of the American citizens of Japanese descent were relocated in a short period of time and endured the conditions of the war camps. An intern based army on the Allied side and two major court cases made the US reconsidered the Executive Order and shut down the internment camps. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December, the citizens of America were terrified and blamed the Japanese-Americans.
In response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 in February 1942. Order 9066 allowed the removal of Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent from the pacific coast. This action was known as Japanese-Americans internment. The Japanese-Americans were forced to leave businesses and homes. Then they were sent to prison like camps.
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.
Was Japanese internment, being in a camp away from the outside world, bad? Japanese internment was very wrong and unjustified in many ways. Japanese internment was terrible for innocent people that did nothing wrong. The reasons that Japanese internment was wrong are that they were given horrible food and forced to sit in a crowded mess hall, they lived in cheap and fast-built shacks in groups, and the U.S admitted that Japanese internment was wrong.
On December 7th, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (located in Hawaii) which resulted in war between Japan and the United States. Thousands of Japanese-Americans were removed from their homeland and sent to internment camps after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 (Morelock, 2010). With Executive Order 9066, basic civil rights were taken away from the Japanese-Americans (Morelock, 2010). The constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 was questioned by many people (Morelock, 2010). I believe that internment camps were justified because of national security at risk.
However, it did not specifically target those of japanese descent but rather broadly stated that anyone that was a threat to the United states during war time. Executive order 9066 allowed the War Department Broad powers to create military exclusion areas (Niiya, Public Law 503). These exclusion areas are known as internment camps, built by the military, surrounded by barbed fence. Before the order was even put into action there was already “anti-japanese” activity occurring.-- “weeks before the order, the navy removed citizens of japanese descent from terminal island near the port of Los Angeles” “... just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese community and religious leaders, arresting them.. (Smithsonian Institute, Japanese Internment Camps)”.
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the United States government's perspective on Japanese Americans changed significantly. Within months, President Roosevelt had issued the Executive Order 9066, February 19, 1942 (Ford 255). After this everything began to change for the Japanese Americans. The government thought the best thing to do regarding the Japan attack on Pearl Harbor was to send the Japanese to internment camps, just in case there were any “spys”. When the Japanese were taken away from their homes, they could only bring a small amount of their belongings.
The order gave authority to the government to ban any person from living in some area and provide another place for them to live, essentially forcing them to relocate to the government area. The government subjected the Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to this and moved them to internment camps under the assumption that, in war, everyone at least 1/16 Japanese, including WWI veterans, citizens, children, and many people who had never been to Japan, would be loyal to Japan. Despite no evidence for such beliefs, these actions were justified as a wartime necessity. Executive Order 9066 set a precedent on how a government can treat citizens in the United States during war. It set a precedent on how racism can affect government decisions.
Due to the pressure from the state leaders mostly in the west coast, on the 19th of February 1942, President Roosevelt signed the “Executive Order 9066”. When this “internment order” was given out, the Americans rounded up and exiled their Japanese American neighbors, without any factual basis of their disloyalty towards the United States. More than two thirds of them were the same citizens of the country and many even fought together in Europe against the Axis Powers. This order resulted in a violent imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese American ancestry, half of whom were children, to relocate into approximately ten remote internment camps located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas.
The executive order called the War Relocation Authority signed by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 ordered that over one-hundred thousand Japanese “65 percent of whom were American citizens — would spend up to four years imprisoned, working to rebuild their lives.” (A |More| Perfect| Union). Due to this executive order, many Japanese’s Americans were forced to give up their livelihoods all because Americans were parodied and fearful. Fearful that those of Japanese descent regardless if they were born in America or not, would turn against the non-Japanese Americans and kill them. For the next four years Japanese American’s were imprisoned and forced to work on these internments.
