Japanese-American Reflects On The Lessons Of Internment Camps

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the United States. The Japanese Americans living within the US, as citizens, were shortly after ostracized. Eventually, they were sent to internment camps in which they were stripped of their belongings, forced to live in deplorable conditions, and suffered from racism and discrimination within the centers. "You're not getting your diplomas because your people bombed Pearl Harbor” (At 92, A Japanese-American Reflects On The Lessons Of Internment Camps). Her principal told Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga in the spring after Pearl Harbor. Individual rights should not be sacrificed in the name of national security because often freedoms are violated, equality is lost, and discrimination breeds and these are not worthy

This right is stated in the Constitution under the Fourteenth Amendment. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” (Fourteenth Amendment). The constitution explicitly states this and yet, America, under the pretext that this was an exception and a necessary evil, unjustly sent Japanese Americans to internment camps regardless without “due process of law”. The Japanese Americans lived in horrible conditions against their will and were threatened by death if they tried to leave. “ The camps were surrounded by barbed-wire fences patrolled by armed guards who had instructions to shoot anyone who tried to leave” (Life in the Camps). This explicitly breaks the promise of guaranteed freedom for all Americans. Liberty is a guarantee of no repressive orders that impose on one’s way of life and other rights. And yet, these innocent people were stripped of their homes, businesses, and belongings too large to take with them and taken to live fear-stricken lives in dirty, disease-ridden conditions in which their only way out. Is this worth protecting the white lives of America? The US government seemed to think so. They also imposed on the Japanese Americans rights to security were also lost. Article 5 of the Equality and Human Rights Commission states that

They were treated differently because their ethnicity happened to align with that of the people behind Pearl Harbor. “For years, many Japanese Americans lived in harsh, overcrowded conditions, surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards” (Day Of Remembrance Of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II). The government didn’t take care of the Japanese Americans and subjected them to humane conditions, living along with livestock. This treatment should be no one’s choice to make and the Japanese Americans should have had a say whether or not they were willing to live in those conditions for the sake of national security. If there were suspicious persons, the government should have investigated them because they were reasonably suspicious, not because they were Japanese. This treatment of the Japanese Americans greatly differed from that of their white counterparts. “Some Japanese Americans died in the camps due to inadequate medical care and the emotional stresses they encountered. Several were killed by military guards posted for allegedly resisting orders” (Internment History). This can only prove that the treatment was overkill and while the government uprooted their own citizens, they also didn’t put any effort into making the conditions liveable. While the Japanese Americans were living in horrible conditions forced upon them by the government, other Americans got to