Social Effects Of Japanese Internment

In order to entirely grasp their situation, it is essential to know the their background information. Referring far back in to the Tokugawa era, the government banned Japan to mingle with exterior influences, as it was afraid of the spread of Christianity. However, due to the arrival and enforcement of American Comrade Perry in 1853, Japan had to open its country after almost 200 years. Although the Japanese government was reluctant of the emigration since the 1868, just after 10 years, the emigration was encouraged due to the inactive economy and increase in the unemployment rate. While in the beginning, United States and Canada were willing to accept many Japanese immigrants, they soon started to restrict and finally the migration companies had to find new destinations.

They experienced legal discrimination in the forms of denial of citizenship and denial of land ownership as non-whites. California laws in 1920 even kept them from being guardians of their U.S. born children’s property, as well as, from leasing land in any way. Despite these efforts, their keen agricultural knowledge afforded them the skills necessary to continue as tenant or truck farmers through 1941 with moderate success. California even attempted to segregate schoolchildren which made international headlines and eventually led to Japanese being

Building up to the mid 1940s, Japan’s resentment towards western civilizations grew in response to their forced trade relationships. After militarily taking over parts of China, Japan decided to strike the United States before they could respond to Japan’s belligerence. With the attack of Pearl Harbor, Japan pushed the United States to officially join the Second World War. Fear from the attack towards the Japanese and existing racism lead to the internment of the Japanese citizens of North America, which led to hostile relations between those of the Japanese and the Americans. Pearl Harbor created an overwhelming fear amongst the citizens of America of the Japanese.

The author argues in this chapter that Chinese families were unjustly separated in America because the husbands needed work and Chinese woman were not allowed into America. A specific piece of evidence that the author uses to support his case is the men who looked for loopholes in the law, attempting to bring their families from China to America. Ch. 7 The main subject of this chapter is the hardships that Koreans suffered as they migrated to America after the earthquake in 1906. The author argues in this chapter that Americans treated the Koreans just like the Japanese, often confusing the two races while continuing to utter racial slurs about them.

The federal government [at the time] claimed it was merely out of concern for America’s safety but it still cannot be denied that Japanese Americans were stripped of their constitutional rights without contrition or true reflection. The psychological impact imposed on those Japanese Americans while in the camps are often overlooked, disregarded, and/or muted. Apropos to this, authors such a Yoshiko Uchida, have written many texts to relay the emotions of those interned. Unlike many writers, Uchida first highlights the life Japanese Americans lived before being stripped of their

It is pretty undisputable that the Canadians did hold prejudice and was racist towards the Japanese people. Many believe this to be the driving reason to the Japanese’ internment. Pre-Pearl Harbor, racism was not as intense, but still was real. There was some level of racism ever since the first Japanese people entered Canada in 1877 ("The Internment of the Japanese during World War II."). They were always looked down upon for the inability to speak the language there.

Lobbyists from western states, many representing competing economic interests or nativist groups, pressured Congress and the President to remove persons of Japanese descent from the west coast, both foreign born (issei – meaning “first generation” of Japanese in the U.S.) and American citizens (nisei – the second generation of Japanese in America, U.S. citizens by birthright.) During Congressional committee hearings, Department of Justice representatives raised constitutional and ethical objections to the proposal, so the U.S. Army carried out the task instead. The West Coast was divided into military zones, and on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing exclusion. Congress then implemented the order on March 21, 1942, by passing Public Law

To start off, Americans weren’t affected by the Japanese Internment Camps as much as Germans, and those in surrounding countries, were by the Nazi Concentration Camps. As said in the American Propaganda Video, Japanese-Americans were, “...potentially dangerous…” and that the relocation of them was, “...with real consideration for the people involved.” Most Americans didn’t know the truth about the Japanese Internment Camps so they were, if anything, comfortable with the decision. However, this wasn’t the case with the Nazi Concentration Camps. Germans who didn’t remain loyal to Hitler were sent to a Concentration Camp, leaving thousands of Germans living in fear. Other countries, like Poland, were also affected by this, Concentration Camps were built in Poland and all Jewish people living in Poland were put into a camp.

Racism & The Great Migration In 1920s, racism was big in the south. Blacks weren’t allowed any of the rights whites had due to segregation and all the laws preventing them from being equal. The Great Migration affected the location of racism because when blacks moved north, racism followed. Blacks moved north to escape poverty caused by sharecropping and Jim Crow laws. When slavery was abolished, whites rented land to blacks to grow crops in return for a percentage of the crop.

When you think of internment camps in World War II and the discrimination of an entire race, you probably think of the Nazi’s mass genocide of the Jewish people. However, not nearly as often discussed or taught, was the American discrimination of Japanese-Americans in the form of Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. Due to the terrible attack on Pearl Harbor, the American public became paranoid of another attack on American soil and as a result of this, war hysteria overtook the country. Anti- Japanese paranoia increased due to a large Japanese presence in the West Coast. The American people thought of the Japanese Americans as a security risk in the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland.

The Executive Order 9066 is where the order for the internment camps originated from. It shows how the American government addressed the Japanese-Americans living in the United States. At first everyone including the President defended the Japanese living in the United States until the Niihau incident where two Hawaiian born with Japanese ethnics helped and aided a downed pilot that assisted in the attacks of Pearl Harbor. After that the fear of Espionage became a huge concern and the racially motivated crimes and discrimination against the Japanese-American’s, is why the Executive Order 9006 was signed and enforced. The order forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans with most of them being American citizens to leave their homes, businesses and American constitutional rights behind and spend the war years behind barbed wire (By, 1988).

The first Japanese-Americans, or Issei, came to America in the early 1880s, looking for work and adventure. Many Issei were laborers, coming to America to snatch up all the jobs the Chinese had left open in the wake of the Chinese Expulsion Act of 1882. Though many were laborers, some were students, merchants, or professionals. Racism was a massive problem for the Japanese-Americans. Native born Americans resented the Japanese presence in the Pacific Northwest as they believed that the Japanese were taking jobs that belonged to the Americans.

Whilst the Japanese were being sent to the camps, many people on the west coast were hanging racist signs in storefronts and neighborhoods giving the obvious notice that Japs were not welcome. This attitude of hatred is what caused the poor conditions of the internment camps on the west coast, carried out and justified by the idea that the white Americans were better than the Japanese Americans due to the suspicion of espionage. The Japanese Americans were thought of as spies therefor they were thrown into internment camps where the discriminatory attitude of western Americans brought upon their unjust treatment. The pressure of WWII caused the American government to make unecessary precautions in hopes of protecting a nation when they in fact they divided it. This event caused discrimination towards not only Japanese people but all Asian Americans and its wars like these that spark hatred within