Lilly Mulhern Mr. Skea Social Studies May 26, 2023 Japanese Internment Japanese American internment was not a good solution that the United States had gone with. The Attack on Pearl Harbor was December 7, 1941, and the Japanese military did a surprise attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where 2,403 people died. The main reason for this attack was because the United States cut off Japan's access to their oil. 2 months after the attack, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which started the internment of Japanese Americans. They were taken to internment camps and kept prisoners, and this was to prevent sabotage. This was the wrong thing to do, especially because almost all of the 120,000 people in the camps …show more content…
The things they should have put more energy to were their other rivals; Germany and Italy. As Harry Paxton Howard talks about in his periodical from 1942, “From a military point of view, the only danger on this coast is from Germany and Italy…But the American government has not taken any such high-handed action against Germans and Italians – and their American-born descendants – on the East Coast, as has been taken against Japanese and their American-born descendants on the West Coast.” Instead of setting up internment camps and putting Japanese Americans through all of this terror, the United States should have put their time into rivals and other problems going …show more content…
This makes it fair to keep them in internment camps for the safety of the United States, since they may help Japan and sabotage. According to the representative Leland Ford’s statement, “As justification for this, I submit that if an American born Japanese, who is a citizen, is really patriotic and wishes to make his contribution to the safety and welfare of this country, right here is the opportunity to do so, namely, that by permitting himself to be placed in a concentration camp, he would be making his sacrifice, and he should be willing to do it if he is patriotic and working for us.” However, Leland is wrong. He said it himself; Japanese Americans are citizens, the same as everyone else, just with a different race. They care about the United States and they would not do anything to help sabotage their home. As the Commission said in their Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, “The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan.” The real reason the government put Japanese Americans in internment camps was because of their race, and they were just mad at Japan.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Over 120,000 people were uprooted from their lives and placed in internment camps, where they faced harsh living conditions and limited freedoms. The internment was based on the belief that Japanese Americans were a threat to national security, even though the majority were U.S. citizens and had no ties to Japan. The internment showed the dangers of scapegoating and stereotyping, as a whole group of people were punished based on the actions of a
A Japanese American had written a letter to one of their friends explaining , document 3 states “These among other things I remember of that Christmas 1941. Then another memory runs through my aching head...a low voice -- “You damn Jap-you! By gosh,the government should put every damn one of you in concentration camps”----I remember the cold shiver that ran up my spine…” the racism happened before they were sent to the concentration camp during all of the racism they have trauma and terrible memories of what they went through. Someone had written a letter to the congress saying to eliminate the Japanese american, in Document 5 “The Japanese cannot be assimilated as the white race. We must do everything we can to stop them now as we have a golden opportunity and may never have it again.”
Millions of Americans sacrificed to help the United States fight in World War ll. These sacrifices included fighting in the war or helping improve the war effort. For Japanese Americans though, their sacrifice was being imprisoned in internment camps. Representative Leland Ford was the first member of Congress to publicly argue for the internment of Japanese Americans. A statement from his anti-Japanese campaign in California is, “As justification for this, I submit that if an American born Japanese, who is a citizen, is really patriotic and wishes to make his contribution to the safety and welfare of this country, right here is the opportunity to do so, namely, that by permitting himself to be placed in a concentration camp” (Document A).
The Tragedy Events of the Japanese Internment of WWII There were many tragedies that led up to the Japanese internment in WWII. At first, it began with Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. When this unexpected attack happened, many other things led after this—things like the Americans fighting back, the execution order 9066, and the Japanese being held in consolidated camps. The Japanese internment during WWII is a tragic event that happened from February 19, 1942 - March 20, 1946. The Japanese Internment of WWII is the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including many U.S. citizens, were imprisoned in isolated camps.
According to the National WWII Museum the US government cited national security as the reason for sending all of these Japanese Americans to internment camps because the American public were fueled to be anti-Japanese because of the Japanese victories in Guam, Malaya, and The Philippines. Another way the government showed that what they were doing was to “prevent espionage”. As a way of doing so President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19th 1942. The order was passed and the camps were created so Japanese Americans would not be allowed the freedom to do as they please meaning they couldn't even go anywhere so this made the American citizens feel safer because there were no Japanese to spy on them if they were in internment camps. Overall it was ruled that, “relocation and internment was justified during circumstances of “emergency and peril ""(Students of History), as a way of saying both national security and preventing espionage were ways the US government justified sending Japanese Americans to internment camps was acceptable during the
Japanese Immigrants in the United States War can affect people in plenty of cruel ways leaving them in hopelessness. During World War II, Americans of Japanese descent lived through racism and fear. The War caused enough fear to put these Japanese Americans through unnecessary labor. They were put into camps to be removed by other American citizens. Sadly, Japanese Americans were forced to prove their already made loyalty to America.
Final Paper – Japanese American Internment Camps The Japanese American Internment Camps during World War II was one of the darkest moments in American history. After the bombing at Pearl Harbor a policy was made that forced Japanese Americans to relocate to these camps. These internment camps were created to detain Japanese Americans who were deemed a security threat to the United States.
Japanese Interment Camps The Japanese internment camps were areas designed to send Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Since Japan was at war with the United States, many people feared Japanese spies. Because of this on February 19, 1942, President, Theodore Roosevelt decided to issue executive order 9066. This caused anyone with Japanese heritage to be moved inland into internment camps if they lived along the west coast. The Japanese internment camps were unjustified despite preventing some hate crimes against the Japanese by isolating them.
Most if not all Japanese Americans ran small businesses or had jobs such as a fisherman or a farmer either way none of these jobs gave them access to weapons or something that could help the Japanese Americans. There were people and countries that were much more dangerous then the Japanese Americans weren’t being detained. Clearly the only reason they were being put in concentration camps is of how they look and where they are from. Japanese Americans mostly had simple jobs that didn’t give them access to any government material, Curtis B. Munson once wrote, “There is far more danger from Communists and people of the Bridges type on the Coast than there is from Japanese. The Japanese here is almost exclusively a farmer, a fisherman or a small businessman.
Jayna Marie Lorenzo May 23, 2023 Historiography Paper Professor Kevin Murphy Historiography Final: Japanese Internment “A date which will live in infamy,” announced President Roosevelt during a press conference after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Due to the military threat by the Japanese on the West Coast, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering for the incarceration of all people of Japanese descent. The Order forced about 120,000 Japanese Americans into relocation centers across the United States where they remained in captivity until the war ended.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Internment Camps were built during World War Two. The internment began in early 1942 and lasted until the war's end in 1945. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in internment camps by the United States government during WWII. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which caused widespread fear and discrimination against Japanese Americans, several camps were built. Even though the fact that a large percentage of Japanese Americans were US citizens and presented no threat to national security, the US administration justified internment as a necessary action to prevent spies and sabotage by Japanese Americans.
The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is an embarrassing moment in United States history. Fear contributed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the federal government’s unlawful detainment of American citizens without proper cause and justification. The United States failed to take full responsibility and accountability for the illegal detainment of American citizens. These actions impacted several generations of Japanese Americans through the internment, postwar, and redress
government made the decision to incarcerate about “120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship,” solely based on the belief that they posed a threat to national security solely because of their ethnicity. The internment camps were a product of discrimination and racism prevalent during the war. Japanese Americans were singled out based on their ancestry, with no consideration for their loyalty to the United States or the idea of “America [being] a land of opportunity” for everyone. By targeting a specific ethnic group, the government perpetuated harmful stereotypes and fostered an atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty.
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.
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.