Following the start of World War II and due to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt's executive order 9066 went into effect. This order began the marshalling of over 100,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. Camps were located throughout the most harshest western states. This order was enacted to protect the Japanese Americans from harm by the hands of Americans. It was also ordered to prevent any type of espionage because it was believed the Japanese Americans may still have allegiance to their farmer homeland of Japan. Many Americans were worried that people of Japanese heritage, would become spies or saboteurs for Japan. The United States
On the date of Feb 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order. This executive order forced all Japanese American citizens, regardless of their loyalty to the country. It forced them to evacuate their homes and not just the Japanese Americans in a particular part of the country all Japanese Americans would be put into internment camps. At one point in time all of the camps combined held 120,000 Japanese Americans. This was all cause due to the fact that the Japanese Military at the time bombed Pearl Harbor an American Naval base in Hawaii. All of the camps closed by June in 1946. And in 1988 congress awarded restitution payments to each survivor of the Japanese internment camp.
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. If they would have let one of them leave, they could have rebelled. This is a main reason why Japanese suspects had to be taken away to keep the United States population safe. “It will be hard for them to get near anything to blow up if it is guarded” (Munson 2).
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. Furthermore, the United States should do more to compensate the families of those impacted by internment because the recompense provided initially was minimal and should be considered an affront to the memory of the victims.
“Mary Tsukamoto once said ‘I knew it would leave a scar that would stay with me forever. At that moment my precious freedom was taken from me’” (Martin 54). The Betrayal. The attack on Pearl Harbor. Freedom being ripped away. Loyalty being questioned.
Japanese Americans shouldn’t have been punished because most of them were born and raised on the West Coast. They had to sell their homes, stores, and most of their assets because they could not be certain their homes and livelihoods would still be there on their return. It made no difference that many had never been to Japan because Japananese American veterans of WW1 were forced to leave. The fear was that if Japanese invaded the west coast of America, they would be loyal to Japan instead of the U.S. They held Japanese prisoners in temporary shelters such as stables in racetracks. After the years had pass, the U.S. government felt sorry for what they did
All Asians are good at math, all blondes are dumb, all Muslims are terrorists - these are all common stereotypes. Without even realizing it, stereotypes have undeniably played an enormous role in individual lives. Minds seem to already set a certain image in them based on the people they encounter. People judge others by their skin tone, ethnicity, and physical appearance unconsciously, and this have been proven by many social experiments. Of course, though these stereotypes might be accurate at times, there are situations where they are completely defied. The famous author Agatha Christie recognized this pattern and applied the formulas to her novels. In Murder on the Orient Express, Christie created quite a stereotypical atmosphere -where every character is judged by their nationality, but defies those stereotypes planted on them. This theme leads to the thought of the relationship between stereotypes and racism. There is a
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.
Internment was brought about by a justifiable fear for the security of the nation. Japan had figured out how to pull off the assault on Pearl Harbor, which nobody had thought was conceivable. The possibility that they may assault the West Coast while the US military was still in shock was on everyone’s mind. Secondly, it was caused by racism. 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. Many families sold their
Imagine not being able to walk outside at night or having to sell your possessions and abandon your home to spend years behind barbed wire—even though you’d done nothing wrong. For Japanese Americans during World War II, this scenario was reality. The freedom they once had is now gone, as they are put into concentration camps no longer in their home. Now having to line up for meals and to do laundry, thing you did before on a normal basis, while being hovered over. The internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. was the act of forcing those of Japanese decent to relocation and incarcerating them during World War II. Between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry was under armed guard and behind barbed wire living on the
The following events caused the tensions to raise between Japan and The United States of America which led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Internment of Japanese Americans. They are the Rape of Nanking and the sudden stop of U.S exports to Japan. In the 1930s Japan, had become very nationalistic, militaristic, and desired for more land to expand the population. So, Japan went to China and conquered Manchuria, Northern China, then most of China, and eventually Southeast Asia. This help Japan get out of its economic crisis but soon a very tragic and horrendous even took place. The Rape of Nanking was a total massacre of the Chinese because at the time it was a glorified city that stood testament to China’s wealth and beauty. Within a
It ties into explore by the government making the decision of signing Executive Order 9066. The government explored new ways of keeping any Japanese spies contained in internment campss. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese experienced racism and exclusion of other people. Signs were put on stores and neighborhoods saying, “No Japs!” Also, military was encountered on a daily basis for the Japanese while in internment camp. Guards made sure that there would be no escapees by surrounding the camp with guard towers. Finally, the government exchanged human rights for the safety of the country. They forced the Japanese into internment camps for two years. The people of Japanese ancestry had their rights taken away from them in order to keep spies from giving critical information to Japan while World War II. Japan finally lost the war, allowing the internees to be set
I do not think that Roosevelt 's actions were justified in the internment of Japanese-American citizens, because there was very little evidence that the Japanese citizens were a threat to the rest of America. The Executive Order 9066 led to a lot of changes for Japanese-American citizens. The Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Roosevelt two weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and this authorized the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." This affected the Japanese-American citizens because the military then defined the entire West Coast, which was home to the majority of Japanese-Americans, as a military area. This then led them to relocate to internment camps, built by the U.S military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese-American citizens endured poor living conditions are poor treatment by their military guards, along with the rest of the country.
As opposed to righteous view that America was safeguarding its position in the war, the Japanese American internments were created out of resentment and racial prejudice fostered by other Americans. As the article “Personal Justice Denied” stated, the internments were led by “widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan” (Doc E, 1983). It may seem like a precautionary cause to make internments but there aren’t any other extreme measures for other fronts. Caused by a hatred stirred by media and society’s view, many people disdain the Japanese. Even at the high levels of government, officials share similar prejudices. In this sense, there was very
Japanese internment camps made us question who was really an American and it relates to today’s issues. Internment camps were similar to concentration camps or prison and Japanese-Americans were put into them. Even though they were considered Americans, they were still treated unfairly by other Americans. So who is American? In my opinion, the Japanese were still trying to show that they were Americans. They were complying with people putting them into the internment camps and they burned all of their heritage. Honestly, they were not doing anything un-American, but, because of their race, they were targeted. Arresting someone based on race is not constitutional, but we still see it today. Latinos are being discriminated because people