Was Japanese Internment Justified Essay

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During World War II more than 127,000 Japanese-American citizens were imprisoned at internment camps in the United States. Their only crime was that they had Japanese ancestry and they were suspected of being loyal to their homeland of Japan. This was done because earlier, the Japanese government bombed the United States(U.S.) Naval base at Pearl Harbor to attempt a sucker punch on the US before their fight which turned into World War 2. Though, many argue if the decision of the internment was justified or not it is clear that this was not justified. The decision was not justified because it was made out of fear, anger and war hysteria, also the Italian-Americans and the German-Americans were not treated the same way as the Japanese-Americans …show more content…

Special representative Curtis B. Munson wrote a report talking about how the Japanese were nowhere near capable or unloyal enough to pull off sabotage. “The Japanese here is almost exclusively a farmer, a fisherman or a small businessman. He has no entree to plants or intricate machinery” (Document D). Rep. Munson is saying that the Japanese-Americans are strictly fishermen or farmers so they would not have the money or access to weapons. So, the Japanese-Americans were not capable of harming any military personnel because of their lack of access to …show more content…

The Italian-Americans and German-Americans do not have a distinctive look so these people were not easily recognized as a threat as the Japanese-Americans so they could not be easily corralled into camps. After the internment, a man named Harry Paxton Howard wrote for his black periodical and focused on promoting civil rights talks about how the threat could just as easily come from Germans or Italians. “Germans and Italians are “white.” Color seems to be the only possible reason why thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry are in concentration camps. Anyway,there are no Italian-American, or German-American citizens in such camps” (Document E). Mr. Howard is saying just because the Italian-Americans and German-Americans look like Americans and Japanese-Americans look different they are being mistreated. If the Japanese-Americans were interned the German and Italian-Americans should have been treated the same if this really wasn’t about

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