Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Japanese internment after ww2
Japanese internment after ww2
Japanese internment after ww2
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Japanese internment after ww2
The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was a clear example of mass hysteria that permeated the United States during the dark days of WWII. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor many Americans believed that the Japanese were disloyal and were associated with the enemy. There were rumors that the Japanese Americans were exchanging military information and had hidden connections. The U.S became increasingly paranoid causing a question to arise, is this really because the Japanese were truly spies or is it mass hysteria? In the process of war the public skipped to the conclusion that all Japanese Americans were out to get them. The suspicion of a government takeover was on everyones mind. Paranoia led people into to thinking every single Japanese American was guilty, no matter if it was a child, a WWI veteran, or if they had ever even been to Japan. The suspicion did not end there, inducing temporary segregation, and the exploitation of japanese american’s human rights. Mass hysteria and racism influenced the government's actions towards the Japanese. After WWI when everyone was tired of war and thought it was done with, foreign warfare started bubbling up again. A sudden attack by the japanese would have any average american suspicious of any japanese they came across. Especially in the 1940s. So the hysteria was understable. The question was whether or not to do anything about it, and for an angry, grief stricken America, internment camps were the answer. Mass hysteria of the Japanese caused the urge for government issue of executive order 9066 to satisfy the anti-Japanese groups and to rid of all the fear. The order was based on a false claim. The day of, Japanese Americans were given 48 hours to leave their homes a... ... middle of paper ... ...f American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan.The Japanese attempted to fight back and prove their innocence.The most famous case, Korematsu v. United States shows that. According to Kelly “The Korematsu case was significant because it ruled that the United States government had the right to exclude and force people from designated areas based on their race.” The decision was 6-3 that the need to protect the United States from spying and other wartime acts was more important than Korematsu's individual rights,better yet any Japanese-American’s rights. To cover up the fact that it was mass hysteria the paranoid Americans claimed it was justified by the Army’s claims that Japanese Americans were radio-signaling enemy ships from shore and were most likely disloyal. The court called the incarceration a “military necessity”(Korematsu Institute).
This caused the Japanese to become a scapegoat of America’s fear and anger. The Issei and Nisei who once moved to this country to find new opportunities and jobs were now stripped of their homes and businesses and were forced to live in poor living conditions (DISCovering). Although many Americans believed that Japanese American internment was justified because it was used to protect us from attacks by Japanese Americans, it was very unlikely that they were ever going to attack us in the first place. For example, in Dr. Seuss’ political cartoon, many Japanese Americans are lined up to get TNT and waiting for a signal from Japan to attack (Seuss).
The United States government gave several justifications, both military and constituently for the decision of the camps. However, not all of the Japanese Americans took the order in stride. There was resistance by the Japanese to the government policy and lawsuits were filed going all the way to the Supreme Court. In recent history, the Supreme Court has reversed a few judgments from the 1940s. The question of civil liberties over national security of the Japanese Americans in the 1940s is parallel to Arab Americans after September 11, 2001.
There are a number of reasons why the internment of the Japanese people had to take place. Japan was a major threat to the United States which made anyone of Japanese descendent a potential traitor and threat to America’s security. No one was quite sure what they were capable of.
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
Nevertheless, Japanese were resented and disliked by whites. Due to pressure from state leaders near the west coast, President Roosevelt, on February 19, 1942, signed Executive Order 9066. This resulted in the which resulted in the violent imprisonment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. When the government gave its internment order, whites rounded up, imprisoned, and exiled their Japanese neighbors. In 1942, 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States were relocated to ten internment camps. More than two thirds of those sent to internment camps, under the Executive Order, had never shown disloyalty and were also citizens of the United States. In April 1942, the War Relocation Authority was created to control the assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps, and oversee the relocation of Japanese-Americans. It took another forty years for the US government to recognize the violations of this population's constitutional rights.
Even Japanese-Americans who were born in this country were mistakenly thought to be loyal to Japan. There were a lot of rumors that Japanese Americans were helping Japan by using special codes to make contact with them. There is no evidence that Japanese Americans were spying for Japan. Inspite of the fact that there was absolutely no proof that Japanese Americans were disloyal to America, the federal government and its leaders decided that no one of Japanese ancestry could live in the west coast of the United States. On the morning of February 19, 142, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which began this prohibition.
With the attacks on the United States by terrorists, many Americans have been experiencing feelings of fear, sadness and tremendous anger. Many of Middle-Eastern descent have been experiencing great prejudice and discrimination and are being stereotyped as terrorists. These types of feelings are very prevalent in American society today. Similarly, though not widely as discussed, Japanese-Americans have felt these feelings directed toward them for several generations. Going from the extreme of being herded to internment camps after the surprise attack of Pearl Harbor, to the more commonplace, being stereotyped in the entertainment industry and internet sites, prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping have been apart of the lives of many Japanese Americans.
...ts were violated by the federal government during World War II.” From this, one can conclude that the United States admitted to making a mistake in their treatment of the Japanese Americans and how irrational one can behave when one does not understand and is afraid of the unknown.
“Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.” (Roosevelt 1). The attack on Pearl Harbor marked the United States’s entry into World War II. World War II is remembered for the devastation of millions of people’s lives; concentration camps, mistreatment, and Adolf Hitler come to mind. But rarely talked about is the effects on Japanese American lives. We condemn the Nazi Third Reich for their attempts to exterminate the Jewish population, but we fail to account for the fact that here in the United States we similarly rounded up an entire ethnic population and herded them into camps like animals. The reality is, the fear of Japanese Americans was probably more race related than founded in any credible fear. Directly after the attack of Pearl Harbor things changed immediately for everyone, especially Japanese Americans. Gradually Japanese Americans on the West coast
Japanese Americans Internment Image being forced out of your home by the government, and then being involuntary to live in horrible conditions in the like the internment camps! The Japanese Americans were treated very inhumanely in the internment camps during WWII in many ways. The American government played a major role during this time, and the government was the ones who placed the Japanese Americans in the internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The American government also gave the Japanese Americans not even a week's notice to gather, and only kept what they could carry with them. In the internment camps that the American government, the Japanese Americans were not treated equally like they originally hoped they would by coming to America.
World War two was a terrible, terrible time, not only for Jewish people and people of religion, but also for Japanese-Americans. The conditions of the Japanese-American internment camps were not nearly as severe compared to the conditions of the concentration camps during the Holocaust, due to the government decisions. The conditions of the internment camps would seem like a paradise to people who had to be in the concentration camps. The conditions of not only the weather, but the living conditions, the food, the communities and the amount of labor that was forced upon the people was completely different between the two camps.
Tom Brokaw said, “During World War II, law-abiding Japanese-American citizens were herded into remote internment camps, losing their jobs, businesses and social standing, while an all-Japanese-American division fought heroically in Europe”. During World War II whether if the Japanese were fighting against the United States, or simply living as our neighbor they were classified as an enemy. In January 1942, one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans were incarcerated simply because they were Japanese. Most of these people had been born in America and didn't have a single act of violence or breaking of the law on their record. During all of this there was no process of law and these innocent people were being forced into internment camps without any questions. After two years and nine
The casualties of war caused America’s Japanese minority to be judged throughout the US. Americans believed all Japanese people were spies and needed to
On February 19, 1942 an Executive Order was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This order is now remembered to be one of the biggest violations of civil justice in American history. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced to leave their everyday lives and commute to internment camps in many different locations with extremely neglected conditions. Though most were United States citizens, those with Japanese heritage were forced to abandon their homes. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, suspicions arose in the United States and many were uncomfortable with the large Japanese American population. Many citizens believed they may be spies planning the next attack or gathering information for the Japanese government.
War fabricates hysteria and destruction wherever it resides. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, created an internal fear throughout American’s homes. The word “American” does not only apply to those who were born and share a native heritage that connects them to the land but to also those also who have immigrated overtime to the land of the free. However, as this hysteria crept through the minds of American citizens, it quickly built a barrier against those of Japanese descent.