Japanese Internment Essay

In the 1900s there was a lot of conflict between the Native Americans and America, the Native Americans have been around longer than the other explorers who came after some time and decided to take their land and, there was conflict between the Japanese after the Japanese had bombed an American base in Hawaii (Pearl Harbor). But who was treated the worst? The Native Americans were. This was because they had their children taken from them, were forced onto reservations, and they only had the clothes that were on their back.

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

World War II was a very traumatizing time for the soldiers that fought in it. Unfortunately, the War was also a very traumatic experience for the Japanese Americans that were forced into internee camps. Key examples of those who have struggled through awful conditions are Miné Okubo and Louie Zamperini. Miné is a Japanese American artist who was forced to live in squalor conditions surrounded by armed guards. Louie is an American soldier and a previous Olympic athlete that was beaten daily and starved almost to death in prisoner of war camps. These heroes perseverance and resistance throughout the monstrous conditions that they were forced to live in proving that humans are capable of recovering and persevering through almost anything. Japanese-American internees and prisoners of war were made to feel invisible but they

This was brought up in 1944 by the Korematsu v. United States case. This was a case between the United States Supreme Court and Fred Korematsu. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was an American civil rights activist who objected to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This case was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. They found Korematsu guilty of the fact that he was giving President Roosevelt inaccurate information about the Japanese-American citizens. As a result of this case, The Supreme Court ruled that inaccurate and false information had led to the internment decision. The Court also ruled that Japanese-Americans had been subject to racial and economic prejudices during this

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.

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).

A nice day, Feb 20, 1942 then out of nowhere 20,000 Japanese Americans kicked out of there homes into horror camps, Internment Camps. At the time Japanese Internment camps where a good idea.

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

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.

These guys felt the blunt force of discrimination during this time. Japanese-Americans were forced into one of ten permanent camps. This was the result of Executive Order 9066 and Pearl Harbor. These camps were given the name internment camps. The point of internment was to test the loyalty of the Japanese-Americans. Some of the able bodied men enlisted into the military, this showed true loyalty. The ones who didn’t were watched carefully. Inside these camps the living conditions were poor. During the winter they had to deal with low quality heating. Amongst the persecution they received they created a community. Working together they had farms, newspapers, and schools. People outside the camps still looked at them like they were traitors. After the war ended the Japanese internment did too, although, last camp didn’t close until 1945 though. The Japanese-Americans returned to their homes, or what was left of them. Most of the ones who were in the internment camps returned to their houses to find that everything they had was gone. Either looted or sold. This was not the only thing that happened to the Japanese-Americans. Some Japanese-American kids were looked at like they were from another country altogether. An example of this can be found in Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, when she was in sixth grade a girl was shocked she could speak English. (pg. 113-114) Years

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

December 7, 1941, Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. Moments after, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war against the Axis Powers, joining in on World War II. On February 12, 1942, the Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which called for the internment of all Japanese Americans. Although the American population were insecure about their safety and American businessmen feared the Japanese invading the American economy, the main reason for the issuance of Executive Order 9066 was the racial discrimination against the Japanese.