Japanese Internment Camps

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America has been known as the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the melting pot in which immigrants flood to escape the persecution of their homes in hopes to create the American dream. They stumble upon the shores in hope of a new tomorrow, but in 1942 some found their dream snatched without rhyme or reason. If we are not careful and do not learn from our past failures history just may repeat itself in such a tragic way. On December 7th of 1941 Pearl Harbor, a navy base in Hawaii was bombed by the Japanese military. This event incited a great amount of fear amongst American citizens. So much so, that in “1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast. This resulted …show more content…

They had very limited time to sell their belongings and because of this they found themselves selling their lives “at a fraction of their true value.” Once they were able to occupy the quickly thrown together internment camps produce by the U.S. government they were paid “$5” a day to complete various tasks within the camp. Essentially the idea of government officials was that the camps occupants “would make the camps self-sufficient by farming to produce food.” However, even this seemed to be no easy feat for the Japanese community. Most of the Japanese internment camps “were built in arid and semi-arid areas .” An arid area is described in the dictionary as being “land that does not have enough water to support the growth of plants.” As a result many camp inhabitants endured “Oedema resulting from protein deficiency, BeriBeri, and Disorders of vision” from their years of malnutrition. In the study Nutrition disorders in Japanese Internment Camps they stated that many of these deficiencies would “worsen” well beyond the inhabitant’s camp years due to their “malnutrition and thiamin …show more content…

Since then Americans have endured many smaller attacks from its’ Muslim inhabitants, some of which were let in to the country legally via visas. Presidential candidate Donald Trump asserts that America “should temporarily bar all Muslims from entering into the U.S.” When he began to face criticism for his plan he found defense in the prior actions of President Roosevelt. According to Julia Glum “he cited what he portrayed as a relevant historical precedent,” and “described Roosevelt's policies as ‘far worse.’" However in a second interview he went on to say that Roosevelt “is a president highly respected by all, he did the same

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