The True Personal Effects Of The Japanese-American WWII Relocation

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On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii causing the United States to enter World War II. Soon after, President D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 approving the removal of any and all civilians from “military areas” to prevent any acts of espionage from being committed. Over 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds being American born citizens, living in the West coast were forcibly sent to internment camps. The U.S. government released a film discussing how the relocation was accomplished. However, the video blatantly disregards the true personal effects and conditions of the Japanese-American WWII relocation. In the video, the narrator Milton S. Eisenhower uses words and phrases such as “cheerfully” and “whole-heartedly” to suggest that the Japanese-Americans were very cooperative and almost pleased during the process. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Devastation struck the Japanese-Americans after they were forced to leave their homes and even family pets. During the first evacuation, they were given six-days to do away with nearly all of their personal belongings and were ordered to only …show more content…

Families were crammed in one small room with no running water, meals and restrooms were communal, and education and medical care was low quality. Their lives had become almost completely public which differed from the privacy they previously relished. The video states that they were provided with “healthful nourishing food for all” when in reality there were cases of malnutrition and food-poisoning. Traditional Japanese family order had also been disrupted as children ate and socialized more with peers rather than with family. Women made the same low income as the men when traditionally the fathers were considered the breadwinners of the household. Some attempted to live as they once did but the circumstances made it