Was the internment of Japanese Americans a compulsory act of justice or was it an unwarranted, redundant act of tyranny which breached upon the rights of Japanese Americans? During World War II thousands of Japanese Americans were told by government officials that they had twenty-four hours to pack their things, get rid of any belongings of theirs, and to sell their businesses away for less than retail value. Although many people thought the Japanese American internment was needed to ensure U.S. security during the war against Japan, these relocation centers were unnecessary violations of Japanese Americans’ rights. These concentration camps are unconstitutional because they infringed upon the Japanese Americans’ first, seventh, and eighth amendment rights.
The argument for the opposing viewpoint states that these relocation centers were needed to ensure U.S. security during the war against Japan. A major contributor to these internment camps was the bombing at Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, the republic of Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The government feared attacks by “imperial Japanese forces” and a sabotage by Japanese Americans (The Japanese Internment: World War II). In addition, the U.S. military saw the Nikkei, Japanese immigrants, as a “potential security risk” and worried that the Nikkei would provide “sensitive information” to the Japanese government and/or subvert U.S. government (The Japanese Internment: World War II). The FBI began making a “threat list”; the people on this list were to be arrested and detained (The Japanese Internment: World War II). The government felt that it was the “military necessity” to intern Japanese Americans in order to prevent “espionage,...
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...Valerie. "Japanese American Internment." Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History. 286-288. US: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1998. History Reference Center. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Robson, David. "The Defining Characteristics of Japanese Internment." The Internment of Japanese Americans. San Diego, CA: Reference Point, 2014. N. pag. Print.
Robson, David. "Life in Camps." The Internment of Japanese Americans. San Diego, CA: Reference Point, 2014. N. pag. Print.
Robson, David. "War and Evacuation." The Internment of Japanese Americans. San Diego, CA: Reference Point, 2014. N. pag. Print.
Wukovits, John F. "Background to Evacuation." Internment of Japanese Americans. Detroit: Lucent /Gale Cengage Learning, 2013. N. pag. Print.
Wukovits, John F. "The Evacuation." Internment of Japanese Americans. Detroit: Lucent /Gale Cengage Learning, 2013. N. pag. Print.
The novel, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, tells her family’s true story of how they struggled to not only survive, but thrive in forced detention during World War II. She was seven years old when the war started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. Her life dramatically changed when her and her family were taken from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, they had to adjust to their new life living behind barbed wire. Obviously, as a young child, Jeanne did not fully understand why they had to move, and she was not fully aware of the events happening outside the camp. However, in the beginning, every Japanese American had questions. They wondered why they had to leave. Now, as an adult, she recounts the three years she spent at Manzanar and shares how her family attempted to survive. The conflict of ethnicities affected Jeanne and her family’s life to a great extent.
Matsumoto studies three generations, Issei, Nisei, and Sansei living in a closely linked ethnic community. She focuses her studies in the Japanese immigration experiences during the time when many Americans were scared with the influx of immigrants from Asia. The book shows a vivid picture of how Cortex Japanese endured violence, discriminations during Anti-Asian legislation and prejudice in 1920s, the Great Depression of 1930s, and the internment of 1940s. It also shows an examination of the adjustment period after the end of World War II and their return to the home place.
It was no secret that when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, countless Americans were frightened on what will happen next. The attack transpiring during WW2 only added to the hysteria of American citizens. According to the article “Betrayed by America” it expressed,”After the bombing many members of the public and media began calling for anyone of Japanese ancestry။citizens or not။to be removed from the West Coast.”(7) The corroboration supports the reason why America interned Japanese-Americans because it talks about Americans wanting to remove Japanese-Americans from the West Coast due to Japan bombing America. Japan bombing America led to Americans grow fear and hysteria. Fear due to the recent attack caused internment because Americans were afraid of what people with Japanese ancestry could do. In order to cease the hysteria, America turned to internment. American logic tells us that by getting the Japanese-Americans interned, many
As Inada points out with his analogy to a constellation, the United States government had constructed many camps and scattered them all over the country. In other words, the internment of Japanese-Americans was not merely a blip in American history; it was instead a catastrophic and appalling forced remov...
Beginning in March of 1942, in the midst of World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were forcefully removed from their homes and ordered to relocate to several of what the United States has euphemistically labeled “internment camps.” In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes in frightening detail her family’s experience of confinement for three and a half years during the war. In efforts to cope with the mortification and dehumanization and the boredom they were facing, the Wakatsukis and other Japanese-Americans participated in a wide range of activities. The children, before a structured school system was organized, generally played sports or made trouble; some adults worked for extremely meager wages, while others refused and had hobbies, and others involved themselves in more self-destructive activities.
I wish I could say that I would have been against the internment camps, but had I lived during that time frame, I probably would have agreed with society’s fear of Japanese-Americans. Currently working in an assisted living facility, I spoke with many of my residents about this subject. Although they are somewhat ashamed of their actions made by the government, they reminded me that they all had anxiety and concern about immanent invasion of the Imperial Japanese Army attacking the west coast of the United States.
What were the Japanese internment camps some might ask. The camps were caused by the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1942 by Japan. President Roosevelt signed a form to send all the Japanese into internment camps.(1) All the Japanese living along the coast were moved to other states like California, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona. The camps were located away from Japan and isolated so if a spy tried to communicate, word wouldn't get out. The camps were unfair to the Japanese but the US were trying to be cautious. Many even more than 66% or 2/3 of the Japanese-Americans sent to the internment camps in April of 1942 were born in the United States and many had never been to Japan. Their only crime was that they had Japanese ancestors and they were suspected of being spies to their homeland of Japan. Japanese-American World War I veterans that served for the United States were also sent to the internment camps.(2)
Taylor, Sandra C. Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Marsh, James H. "Japanese Internment: Banished and Beyond Tears." The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 23 Feb. 2012. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. .
DeWitt, John L. "Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast." Letter to Chief of State, U.S. Army. 5 June 1943. MS. N.p.
The Government of the U.S. tried blaming the evacuations on the war saying they were protecting the Japanese by moving them. The government made statements during this time that contradicted each other. For example, Japanese-Americans were being called “enemy aliens” but then they were encouraged by the government to be loyal Americans and enlist in the armed forces, move voluntarily, put up no fight and not question the forced relocation efforts (Conn, 1990).
21 . Robinson, Greg By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans,2003, Harvard University Press
“The summer I was thirteen, the Japanese came to Ellis” (Dallas 1). A young girl that goes by the name, Rennie, has had her life turned upside down. Even with the war going on, the only thing the community can think about is, why would the government send the Japanese here after what happened at Pearl Harbor? Rennie Stroud’s small, quiet, town has been altered, and forever changed. The Japanese have created a negative energy throughout the entire community of Ellis. In this journal, I will be evaluating, clarifying and questioning.
The first source that will be evaluated is Greg Robinson’s Book, “By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans” written in 2001. The origin of this source is important because the author is a college professor therefore allowing him to have background knowledge on this subject and further abilities to do research. This source is very valuable in the sense that it can, in some ways be a secondary and a primary source. There
Maybe it is effortless for those who had never felt the sear conditions of internment camps to say, “stay there.” But when you have witness savage crowds torch your mothers and fathers homes by wish and stone your sister and brothers on impulse; when you have witnessed soldiers overflow with loath burn, curse, and even murder your sisters and brothers; when you have witnessed an excruciating amount of your one hundred twenty thousand japanese brothers thrown into the frightening ring of oppression in the heart of a free government; when you unexpectedly find yourself flummoxed and stuttering as you search for an excuse to tell your nine year old sister why she cannot go to the new ice cream bar that opened around the block, and notice despondency