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.
The ideas that are often associated with World War II usually relate to the deadly warfare, to Nazi Germany, and to the utilization of the atomic bomb. However, one of the most overlooked and appalling events that took place during World War II was the internment of Japanese Americans. The event that triggered the policy of internment was the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. The bombing spurred fear among millions of Americans, which would eventually lead the United States into World War II.
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.
There was profound racism against the American Japanese both from the society and some government policies. White farmers in the West Coast were highly prejudicial against their Japanese counterparts and the attack on Pearl Harbor offered them an opportunity to condemn and take away the farms owned by people of Japanese descent. Such groups instigated and fully supported the internment camps to enable them reach their objectives.(Trowbridge, 2016) After receiving contradictory advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 authoritatively mandating the Relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to what would become known as Internment Camps in the interior of the United States. Evacuation orders were posted in JAPANESE-AMERICAN communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order.
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.
“The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States was the forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country.” (Crawford 1). After the attack, the government felt threatened by the Japanese. Therefore, they could not trust any, even the ones living in the United States. Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps or military camps where they were not allowed to leave.
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
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii, was attacked. The attack was launched by the Japanese Empire in an effort to weaken the US’s pacific military fleet because Japan was planning on invading China, one of America’s allies. The attack on Pearl Harbor was extremely concerning for many Americans because the US had never been attacked by a foreign nation before, aside from the Revolutionary War. As a result of this increase in concern, the US joined World War ll and Japanese- Americans became the victim of lots of scrutiny. Slowly Americans of Japanese descent had their rights stripped away.
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.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor there was a spie that was feeding them information. Because of this the US made an act for all Japanese-Americans to be moved to an internment camp. This was a terrible move because none of the 110,000 Japanese-Americans ended up being spies. As well as most of them had never even been to Japan. A lot of the kids there and some of the adults haven’t gone to Japan and were fully American citizens.
The Internment of Japanese Americans Was Not Justified December 7, 1941 was a turning point in American history; it was the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. The following day, December 8, 1941, was the day the United States officially joined World War II. The United States took precautionary steps and ordered thousands of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to barbed wire-enclosed internment camps (Dudley 116). According to Frank Murphy, Michigan governor and U.S. attorney general, these actions were inhumane (Dudley 117). The Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 violated constitutional rights, discriminated against race, and was deliberate in releasing Japanese Americans (Dudley 118).
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.
Imagine being stripped of your life’s business, your home and all of your personal belongings, just because you are of Japanese descent. To some, this might sound unrealistic, but to Japanese Americans this was a real life horror of 1942. The evacuation and incarceration of Japanese Americans into internment camps has been a long since fight for justice due to the violation of civil liberties and basic human rights of the American people, and how people's lives were personally affected. After the Bombing of pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, Japan had become America's biggest threat.
The date was February 19, 1942, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had just finished signing Executive order 9066, an order that would change millions of Japanese-American lives. Order 9066 fueled a fire that helped provoke a long string of racism. This order authorized the forced removal 120,000 Japanese-American. Solely because of their ancestry, their patriotism was questioned. All Japanese regardless of citizenship had to be prepared to leave their homes and could only carry two suitcases with them.
“It made you feel that you knew what it was to die, to go somewhere you couldn’t take anything but what you had inside you. And so…it strengthened you. I think from then on we were very strong. I don’t think anything could get us down now”- Margaret Takahashi, an internee reflecting on the internment experience. During World War II the United States was concerned on the security of the country.
