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Japanese internment camps
Discrimination and persecution of the Japanese internment camps
Japanese internment camps introduction essay
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After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States government started to put Japanese Americans into Internment Camps. They advertised the Internment Camps as a great place to be when in reality it was very crowded and you had little to no privacy. All of the people in the camps were Japanese Americans or their parents. After a long fight, they were finally let out of the camps, the American government had to pay them because of the pain they had caused the people from being in the camps. The United States Government wanted the public population to think that the camps were pleasant to be in, except they were the opposite. They had very limited living space and privacy. The quality of food was very bad. Overall, the quality of the camps was not pleasant to live in. They hired several photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake. Each of these photographers had different views of the camps. …show more content…
She was hired to take pictures as the Japanese and Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and moved from the camps. They wanted her pictures to look like they were having a good time and that the process was not dangerous. Although the government wanted her pictures to look fun and appealing, she did the exact opposite. She captured the hectic scenes where the Japanese and Japanese Americans were being crowded onto buses and other forms of transportation. She also captured their emotions and looks. Some looked stressed and sad while others were confused about what was happening. The government did not care for the look of her pictures since it depicted the stress and activity of the situation, so they forbid her from publishing the pictures. Some of them are in museums today such as the Skirball Cultural
Japanese Internment Camps were established to keep an eye on everyone of Japanese decent. The internment camps were based on an order from the President to relocate people with Japanese Heritage. This meant relocating 110,000 Japanese people. “Two thirds of these people were born in America and were legal citizens, and of the 10 people found to be spying for the Japanese during World War II, not one was of Japanese ancestry” (Friedler 1). Thus, there was no reason for these internment camps, but people do irrational things when driven by fear. In theinternment camps, many of the Japanese became sick or even died because of lack of nourishment in the food provided at these camps. The conditions in the internment camps were awful. One of the internment camps, Manzanar, was located to the west of Desert Valley in California. “Manzanar barracks measured 120 x 20 feet and were divided into six one-room apartments, ranging in size from 320 to 480 square feet.
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)
Much controversy has been sparked due to the internment of the Japanese people. Many ask whether it was justified to internment them. It is a very delicate issue that has two sides, those who are against the internment of the Japanese-Americans and those who are for it. With World War II raging in the East, America was still, for the most part, very inactive in the war. When America took a stand against Japan by not shipping them supplies, Japan became very upset. Japan, being a big island that is very overpopulated with little natural resources, depended on America to provide them with an assortment of supplies including scrap metal and oil, vital items that are needed in a time of war. Japan retaliated by declaring war on America and attacking Pearl Harbor. This surprise act led to many soldiers deaths and millions of dollars of damaged army equipment, including air craft carriers and planes. As a result to Japan declaring war, the Japanese-Americans were asked to and eventually forced to do their duty to the country and report to internment camps until the war conflict was over. Many opposed this act for a couple of reasons. One reason was that people felt that it was a huge hypocrisy that the Japanese were being interned while the Italians and Germans, also our enemies, were still walking around free in America. Another reason why many were against the internment was because many of the Japanese had already been in America for some time now. The Issei, the first generation of Japanese people that immigrated from Japan, had immigrated many years ago. A whole another generation of Japanese children had already began growing up in America called the Nissei. They were automatically U.S. citizens for they were born in America and for the most part were like other American children. Anti-Internment activists also said that the Japanese were being robbed of their rights as U.S. citizens. However, there are two sides to everything.
Twenty years after the First World War, humanity was, yet again, plagued with more hostility. September 1st, 1939 marked the start of World War II, this time, with new players on the board. Waves of fear and paranoia rippled throughout the United States, shaking its’ very foundation of liberty and justice for all. The waves powerfully crashed onto a single ethnic group, the Japanese-Americans, who had their rights and respect pulled away from them. They were seen as traitors and enemies in their own country, and were thrown into prison camps because of it. This event marks one of the absolute lowest points in United States history and has changed the course of the country as a whole.
Living conditions in these camps were absolutely horrible. The amount of people being kept in one space, amongst being unsanitary, was harsh on the body.
Japanese American Internment Camps History Injustice is the unfair treatment or a situation in which the rights of a person or a group of a people are ignored. The internment of the Japanese American in the United States affected hundreds and thousands of lives for generations. It still remains hidden in history. As, I researched every information for this essay, what I found is, this story is ignored by people, it made me clear that the Japanese were so brave to face all the problems. All the Japanese Americans were treated badly because Americans turned their anger on Japanese Americans for a crime that was committed by the Japanese.
Inevitably, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, that began World War II, Japanese-Americans were frowned upon and stereotyped because of their descent. However, Japanese immigrants contributed to economic expansion of the United States. Whites resented the Japanese immigrants, but reaped economic profit from the Japanese-American residents’ discipline and hard work. Japanese-Americans of this time seem to be attacked; however, they choose to uphold their disconnection with the rest of the Americans. Many Japanese felt they had superiority over Americans, creating tension and disconnection.
Cultural diversity has helped us understand other culture contributions by learning about Japanese- American internment camps, 1960’s Harlem, and mexican american culture. To begin with, Japanese- American internment camps made America weaker but, when they got out of the camps it made America stronger. “A fellow came running down the wharf shouting that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor”(Houston, 6). This means that the Japanese who did nothing wrong were to get hurt. The bombing was the beginning point of the book and made it start all of the events. “Bare floors, blanket partitions, one bulb in each apartment dangling from a roof ceiling, and open ceilings overhead”(Houston, 28). This shows that the Americans
How did Americans react to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WW2? This question didn’t seem important during the period of Japanese Internment but it is sure one we’re asking ourselves today. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the government believed this was a good idea. After Pearl Harbor, most Americans were scared of Japanese and anyone they thought was involved with them, including Japanese Americans who had never set foot in Japan. There’s no denying most people in the US were ignorant and believed white people were superior. They were just concerned with being bombed by people of a different skin color.
As stated, “The camps were designed to keep Japanese-Americans isolated from the rest of the world in remote areas.” Miné, along with many other Japanese-American internees, were isolated from the world. Miné was dehumanized. ”’As a result of the interview,’ she wrote, ‘My family name was reduced to No. 13660.’” +This act was dehumanizing. The Americans stripped her of her name, a form of her identity, and she became just a number. Despite this, she resisted. As stated, “Internees were not allowed to have cameras but Miné wanted to document what was happening inside the camps.” Miné knew full well what the repercussions of this could have been, but still did
Others were so bad that even at the sight of something with even some relevance to the camps, they would become these violent people who would scream and go ballistic, the men who had originally entered the camps would exit them never being the same, but some of them found hope, some found God, others found help from family and friends, one of them even built an apartment complex for war veterans, they got their lives back, a few of them had even better lives then as opposed to before the war itself. The war was over, and the former POWs could
During World War II Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps. The internment Camps were poorly built. They lived in barracks, and sometimes whole families would have to live in one room cells. The weather conditions were not favorable either. Like Manzanar and Tule Lake in California where the weather is mostly frigid. The internment camps were surrounded with barb wire, and guard towers. Some Japanese Americans filed lawsuits, but that didn’t stop the internment. “The barracks consisted of tar paper over two-by-sixes and no insulation. Many families were assigned to one barracks and lived together with no privacy. Meals were taken communally in mess halls and required a long wait in line” (“Historical Overview”)
During the midst of WWII, when most Americans were focused in liberating Europe and winning the Pacific battlefronts, a group of American citizens was persecuted at home. Japanese Americans were forced to move out of their homes to relocation centers to, according to the government, participate in the war effort for the greater good of national security. Although the treatments of these two groups of people differed greatly, the psychological effects of relocation were equally detrimental. The Japanese American Internment Camps treated the Japanese Americans as potential spies and enemies, which imbued the Americans to reject the Japanese from the community, stripping away their identity in the process. In Julie Otsuka's novel When the Emperor
During World War Two in Germany there were concentration camps imprisoning thousands for not being the “perfect human being” on terms of Adolf Hitler. In the United States, mainly concentrated on the Western side, were camps holding Japanese Americans. Punishing them for something they had nothing to do with. On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked an American naval base at Pearl Harbor near the Hawaiian island Honolulu. The attack destroyed “nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded” (“Pearl Harbor”). President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war the next day. The Japanese invasion
For this essay I will be writing about what the conditions were like in a Japanese prisoner of war camp (POW camp). I will be focusing on daily routines of the prisoners like their working conditions and the jobs that they were entitled to. I will also be writing on how the prisoners were treated in the POW camps, this will discuss everything from how they were treated by their captors and what their intentions were, how the prisoners got around the camps and also the condition that the prisoners were left in after being transported to the prison. For this essay I will be mainly focusing on the Changi POW camp, located to the south of Malaya in the city of Singapore.