2003 Dbq Analysis

When the founding fathers created the Declaration of Independence in
1776, they stated that all Americans, every single citizen of the United States would be created equal, and their unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be protected by the government. However, in times of desperate measure, like war, in this case World War II, the words of this Declaration are often twisted. The large population of Japanese in California was making the american government nervous, who was debating whether or not to relocate this large and concentrated population of Japanese from California. In order to make this decision, the government had to evaluate two present issues if the time period: racism against Japanese and uncertainty of the Japaneses’ loyalty to the United States.
First of all, many nativist, anti-immigrant feelings, were present in the United States during this time period. White Americans believed that the Japanese in California were taking over their possible jobs, and maybe even going to take of the entire United states. As Austin Anson explains, the Japanese “came to this

These nativist white Americans do indeed want to get rid of the Japanese for ‘selfish reasons”, they want to reclaim their land and their jobs. This is just like the Wilmont Proviso Bill passed by Congress, also called the Whites Man’s Proviso of 1846, that called for limiting the expansion of slavery westward in order to guarantee more opportunities for white farmers moving west. Exactly as in 1846, the government was faced with having to deal with the issue of slavery before taking a decision on the regulation of non white Americans. In this case, this racism issue was a deciding factor. O. l. Scott argued that “we must do everything we can to stop them [Japanese]”(Source 2, Scott). The government listened to scott’s argument by allowing the relocation act to pass and in so, ignoring the civil rights of these Japanese American