The year 1939 wasn’t a good year for anyone. In 1939, France and England declared war on the Axis Powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, starting World War II. During this time Nazi Concentration Camps formed under Hitler’s command and Japanese Internment Camps formed in America. While both camps were horrible things, they were not the same thing. Japanese Internment Camps and Nazi Concentration Camps, essentially, were not the same thing because of the reasons why they were formed, the outcome of the camps, and the effects they had on people.
In the 1940’s there is no doubt that the United States of America was engulfed by mass anti-Japanese hysteria which inevitably bled over into America’s foreign policy. During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human. Japanese-Americans living on the west coast were savagely and unjustifiably uprooted from their daily lives. These Japanese-Americans were pulled from their jobs, schools, and home only to be pushed to
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
As a kid, I’ve heard about Japanese internment and it captivated me. My grandma would tell me how life was like in the internment camp. My fascination with Japanese internment lead me to choose it for National History Day. I wanted to learn more about this important mark in US History. My grandparents, Tom Inouye and Jane Hideko Inouye were put through this so I decided what better way to learn about it while presenting it as a project.
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.
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.
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.
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the United states went into World War II, many people think that the Japanese living near the West Coast aid Japan even though they have no evidence of them doing any wrong. If the person race is Japanese or if their face look Japanese they had to move to an internment camp. The nonfiction story “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston had to face discrimination through her time at Japanese internment camp. Another nonfiction, memoir called “The Bracelet” by Yoshiko Uchida.The story explain that the narrator were having similar experience even though they both live in different area. Each person faces the same challenging time, and the perspectives of the narrator and Ruri know what was happening
During World War II, invisibility was more than just not being seen. Soldier or civilian, they were both made invisible literally and figuratively; most times even both. In the book, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, we are introduced to Louie Zamperini, an Olympic runner who is drafted into World War II. On a rescue mission, the plane he works on runs out of fuel and the engines malfunction, causing the plane to crash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Three survive the crash, including Louie. However, one man does not survive the 47 days spent at sea before they are found by Japanese sailors. From that point forward, Louie was invisible since he was excluded from the outside world and objectified. It was not until he was taken to a POW camp that efforts
Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese? Or am I American?” The internment camps that Gruenewald was placed and like most Japanese Americans were huge camps surrounded
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.
The memoir Looking like the Enemy, was written by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. Set during World War II after the attack upon Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Americans living in Western part of America had a since of betrayal and fear having to evacuate their homes and enter into internment camps. Matsuda’s memoir is based off of her and her family’s experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, undergoing family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment camps.
Yuri Kochiyama is a Japanese-American civil rights activist, and author of “Then Came the War” in which she describes her experience in the detention camps while the war goes on. December 7th, is when Kochiyama life began to change from having the bombing in Pearl Harbor to having her father taken away by the FBI. All fishing men who were close to the coast were arrested and sent into detention camps that were located in Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota. Kochiyama’s father had just gotten out of surgery before he was arrested and from all the movement he’d been doing, he begun to get sick. Close to seeing death actually, until the authorities finally let him be hospitalized.
Imagine being tortured in a POW (prisoner of war) camp or being moved because of your descent into a camp away from all other people of different descents. Louie Zamperini was captured after his B-24 crashed in the pacific ocean and was stranded at sea for 47 days eating sharks and being attacked by them. Louie once imprisoned was beaten and starved to the maximum. Miné Okubo was moved to a camp outside of her town and imprisoned in the United States in fear of betrayal from all people with Asian decent after the pearl harbor attack. The experiences Louie and Miné went through a show that humans can overcome most things as long as you keep your mind set on the positives and think about the reasons you should stay alive. Louie and Miné
The story I found to be the most interesting was "The Red, White, and Blue Badge". While reading this story I found it actually to be disturbing. I had never realized how the Japanese were treated outside of the camps. I had always knew that inside the camps they were treated poorly but I had not realized to this extent. The part of the story that stuck out to me was "Win the War, Kill a Jap". I cannot believe that there would be posters that depict wanting to kill the Japanese. This helped me to really see how poorly and looked down the Japanese people that lived in th U.S. really were. This story helped to open my eyes about the evil things that people wanted and did do to the Japanese Americans.