California's Anti-Japanese Movement During World War II

Internment was brought about by a justifiable fear for the security of the nation. Japan had pulled off an attack on Pearl Harbor, which no one had thought was conceivable. With the thought that Japan may attack the West Coast of the United States, while the US military was in shock, was on everyone’s mind.

Secondly, it was caused by racism. Anti-Asian prejudices, especially in California, began as anti-Chinese feelings. Chinese immigration to the U.S. began about the same time as the California gold rush of 1849. During the initial phases of the economic boom that accompanied the gold rush, Chinese labor was needed and welcomed. However, soon white workingmen began to consider the Chinese, who in 1870 comprised about 10 percent of California's

After their victory, the Japanese began to build an empire in the Pacific. This led to a conflict of interests with the United States for resources. Historians have written extensively on the disproportionate racism toward Japanese Americans throughout World War II. Anti-Japanese movements began shortly after Japanese immigration began, arising from existing anti-Asian prejudices. However, the anti-Japanese movement became widespread around 1905, due both to increasing immigration and the Japanese victory over Russia, the first defeat of a western nation by an Asian nation in modern times. Both the Issei and Japan began to be perceived as threats. Discrimination included the formation of anti-Japanese organizations, such as the Asiatic Exclusion League, attempts at school segregation (which eventually affected Nisei under the doctrine of "separate but equal"), and a growing number of violent attacks upon individuals and

The Western Defense Command considered all Japanese, no matter what generation, to be possible threats to National Security. On February 14, 1942, just five days before President Franklin D Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, he wrote, "The Japanese race is an enemy race. While second and third generation Japanese possess citizenship of the United States, having become Americanized, racial strains are undiluted"(Fox, 1988, p. 407-438)

Many missionaries including Emma Azalia Peet, spoke against the evacuation and Executive Order 9066 and its meaning, at the Tolan Commission hearings. Miss Peet, demanded evidence of wrongdoing by any Japanese American be presented before the government moved to deprive American citizens of their civil liberties. (Exec. Order No. 9066, 1942).

Japanese Americans filed lawsuits to stop the mass incarceration, but the wartime courts supported the hysteria. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hirabayashi v U.S., Yasui v U.S., and Korematsu v U.S. that the denial of civil liberties based on race and national origin were legal. In a later, contradictory ruling in Endo v U.S., the Supreme Court decided that a loyal citizen could not be detained, but this did not stop the internment (Korematsu v. United States,