You People Did This Essay

646 Words2 Pages

World War Two was one of the biggest militarized conflicts in all of human history, and like all wars it lead to the marginalization of many people around the world. We as Americans saw ourselves as the great righteous liberators of those interned into concentration camps under Nazi Germany, while in reality our horse was not that much higher than theirs. The fear and hysteria following the attacks on pearl harbour lead to the forced removal and internment of over 110,000 Japanese American residents (Benson). This internment indiscriminately applied to both first and second generation Japanese Americans, Similarly to those interned in concentration camps, they were forced to either sell, store or leave behind their belongings. Reshma Memon Yaqub in her article “You People Did This,” describes a similar story to that of the Japanese Americans. The counterpart event of pearl harbour being the attacks on the world trade …show more content…

military was awakened in full force, a direct attack that filled Americans both with fear and anger. This attack sparked racial hysteria with the then current media outlets pushing propaganda antagonising the Japanese. Building on pre-existing bigotry, tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were interned despite some being American citizens, a clear violation of their promised civil rights (Takagi). The prisoners were forced to stay in these camps until the conclusion of the war. This blanket internernment affected all ethnic Japanese Americans whether they were loyal or not, this upheld the “Us vs. Them” mentality. It took the government a staggering thirty years to acknowledge the wrongdoing and issue an apology, ten years after the apology the government took to paying the amount of 20,000 to each surviving victim from a fund of $1.25 billion (Benson). The war hysteria divided the Japanese American community from the mainstream Americans and lead to the loss of moral and civil

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