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.
This investigation aims to assess the extent to which Japanese-American internment from 1942 to 1946 was a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which declares that, “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The question must be asked in order to examine the legality of the actions taken by the U.S. government in opposition to American citizens of Japanese extraction (Nisei) and their immigrant parents (Issei). To determine this, the scope of this investigation will concentrate on the reasons for internment and the conditions in which the Japanese people lived during 1942 and 1946, particularly in a camp called Manzanar. One method applied is to explore an oral history interview
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 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.
Throughout the history of our country hatred has been common, as Immigrants enter our homeland they are looked down upon and thought of people who are “destroying” this nation. All these new people coming in are only seeking new opportunities but are discouraged by other because of their ancestry. Humanity’s unjust behaviors can be seen in two different aspects of America 's history, we first see it in the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII and the period of the Salem Witch trials. Arthur Miller’s dramatized play, The Crucible can be correlated to the event of Pearl Harbor because of the similarities between the Japanese Americans and the characters in the play; they both demonstrate the lives of civilians being ruined, a mass hysteria caused by fear of their neighbors, and lack of a just court system.
Among all of the other countries, one had the courage to bomb the United States of America. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor because of the threat the Navy had on the U.S. After that, America feared another attack or even worse, an invasion from Japan in the West Coast. In order to prepare for an invasion America decided to relocate all of the Japanese-Americans, mainly in the West Coast because they were the most threat. Many people debated whether relocating was the right thing to do. The internment of Japanese-Americans was justified because of the security in the Pacific Coast, fear of another attack, and because it was a military necessity.
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).
No innocent people like the Japanese Americans should have been punished or looked as bad people because of their ancestry. The bombing of Pearl Harbor caused the U.S. to fear the Japanese Americans, so they placed them in internment camps. Japanese Americans shouldn’t of been punished because most of them were born and raised on the West Coast. The condition of the camps were often not pleasant. Japanese Americans were viewed as alien and untrustworthy, and isolated from others. Life of a Japanese American was harsh and scary because you never knew what the mad people would do.
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
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
Thesis statement: Though many speculate that the act of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) while not doing so on Europe (Germany and Italy) was racially motivated, racism played little to no role in these bombings. The United States of America and her allies were willing to end World War II at any cost, had the atomic bombs been available they would have been deployed in Europe.
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
Tolerance turned to distrust and irrational fear. The hundred year old tradition of anti-Asian sentiment on the West Coast resurfaced, more vicious than eve. (Houston, p. 15). Three years of wartime propaganda funded racist headlines, atrocity movies, hate slogans, and fright-mask posters turned Japanese faces into something despicable and grotesque. The American Legion and The Native Sons of the Golden West were racist organizations agitating against the West Coast Japanese for decades (Houston, p. 115). Years of isolation widened the spacious gap between the races. It gave birth to more racist organizations with specific purposes of preventing anyone of Japanese descent from returning to the west coast. They used the war as a way to foment hostile feelings in the major farming areas. From the imprint in Jeanne’s mind the word Hate was given by the Americans when signs showed ‘ Japs Go Back Where You Came From’ (Houston, p. 136). Once the war was over in Japan, none of the civilians attacked Louie.There was no hatred towards the, only fear when the war subsided. The three Ex Parte Endo cases had Japanese American citizens challenge the United States Supreme Court as it talked about the racial bias, civil rights, mandatory evacuations at racially selected group of citizens while German and Italian American descendants were not
On May 19, 1942, Japanese Americans were forced into relocation camps. Thousands of men, women, and children were grouped on the West Coast and moved to camps in Utah, Wyoming, California, Colorado, Arizona, and Arkansas. The people were confined by barbed wire and armed guards for up to four years, without legal rights or factual basis. Families were compacted into very small rooms and weren't allowed scissors, radio, or razors. They shared bathrooms and Children went to War Collection Authority Schools. Japanese Americans were allowed to return home on January 2nd, 1945 and were twenty-five dollars and a ticket for transportation but many of their communities, businesses, and homes were
An Internment camp means to put a person in prison or other type of detention, generally in wartime. Internment camps usually meant death. People were treated awful just because of things like their culture or religion. Only because some people did not like their beliefs. So they would be sent off to different internment camps to be killed, or to be mistreated. But people still tried to make the best of the situation.