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)
The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was a clear example of mass hysteria that permeated the United States during the dark days of WWII. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor many Americans believed that the Japanese were disloyal and were associated with the enemy. There were rumors that the Japanese Americans were exchanging military information and had hidden connections. The U.S became increasingly paranoid causing a question to arise, is this really because the Japanese were truly spies or is it mass hysteria?
The Japanese Internment
Throughout history, Canada has relatively been a supporter of multiculturalism. In the past Canada has had very few racial conflict, although there has been one incident which has had quite a controversial effect about human rights violations and discrimination. This thorn in Canada's side is the Japanese Internment which took place during the second world war.
The Japanese Internment took place between the years of 1941 and 1949.
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was filled with panic. Along the Pacific coast of the U.S., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses, this feeling was especially great. During the time preceding World War II, there were approximately 112,000 persons of Japanese descent living in California, Arizona, and coastal Oregon and Washington. These immigrants traveled to American hoping to be free, acquire jobs, and for some a chance to start a new life. Some immigrants worked in mines, others helped to develop the United States Railroad, many were fishermen, farmers, and some agricultural laborers.
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
The internment of the Japanese people in America was one of the darkest and most shameful acts of the United States during the war. Across the seas in Europe we were angry at the Germans, and the Nazis. As Americans we were angry at the torture that Adolf Hitler was bestowing upon minorities. He killed millions of Jewish, lesbian, gay, and mentally and physically disabled people. He trapped them in concentration camps and burned them, beat them and starved them to death. The Holocaust was one of the darkest periods in the history of the world.
FYI (This is a biased written paper written if one were to defend Japanese Internment)
Shortly before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, an army of Japanese fighter planes bombarded the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor bordering Honolulu, Hawaii. The devastating bombing continued for two hours straight. The Japanese goal was to destroy basically everything that belonged to Americans. Which appeared to be a success, two-thousand American soldiers and sailors were deceased after the attack, and left another thousand wounded. Later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded Congress to acknowledge war on Japan which was approved. A few days later, Japan made allies with Italy and Germany and declared war on the United States. Over two years the conflict was ongoing which left America with no other decision but to join World War 2.
The racial conflict with Japanese-Americans began when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a military naval base located in the state of Hawaii. “Behind them they left chaos, 2,403 dead, 188 destroyed planes, and a crippled Pacific Fleet that included 8 damaged or destroyed battleships” (“Attack” 1). The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on the Empire of Japan. The fear that resulted from the attack on Pearl Harbor caused many white Americans to hate the Japanese-Americans. Many Japanese were accused of being spies and were arrested without proof. “Rabid anti-Japanese American racism surfaced the first days after Pearl Harbor. The FBI and the military had been compiling lists of "potentially dangerous" Japanese Americans since 1932, but most were merely teachers, businessmen or journalists” (Thistlethwaite 1). In February of 1942, all of the Japanese on the West Coast of the United States were sent to internment camps.
The risk of a replay of 1942 is clear. In the public's mind, today's enemy is not so different from the enemy of sixty years ago. His religion is foreign, we tell ourselves. His devotion to it is suicidal. He is secretive. He is barbaric. His skin is of a different color. And so on. Yet the situations of Japanese Americans in 1941 and Arab Americans in 2001 are different in hopeful ways. The oppression of Japanese Americans came from more than just military fears and racial hatred. Its main engine was economic. The historical record is clear that the most effective advocates for evicting the West Coast's Japanese Americans were their white business competitors, especially in agriculture. The attack on Pearl Harbor presented white farmers with a chance to cap off a program of economic nativism that had been in place for years.