Alien Land Law Dbq Analysis

Immediately after the attack, the U.S. declared war on Japan. In the days that followed, there were many presidential proclamations that declared strict restrictions on German, Italian, and Japanese residents in the U.S. In the months that followed, the restrictions for aliens from Japan continued to increase, while they were substantially relaxed for German and Italian aliens. This was most likely due to the false negotiations and the unexpected attack from Imperial Japan causing the government to become concerned with the loyalties of Japanese citizens. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government came to the conclusion that it was a very real possibility that Imperial Japan could attempt a full-scale invasion of the United States starting from the West Coast. General John L. DeWitt, commanding officer of the U.S. Army's Western Defense Command, pursued to remove all “enemy aliens” from the West Coast, due to being deemed the most susceptible area to be attacked. General Dewitt recommended the government’s evacuation of all Japanese from the coastal areas of California, Oregon, and Washington state. DeWitt's recommendations were accepted by both the Army and the civilian heads. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Army to "designate military areas" from which "any persons may be excluded." The words "Japanese,” or "Japanese Americans" never appeared in the Order, but the order was primarily used with intent

Executive Order 9066 issued by President Roosevelt on February 19. 1942 was a result of this new racial hatred. This law forced 120,000 Japanese Americans to sell their property, leave their homes, and enter detention camps located around the United States. Many rights granted to citizens by the Constitution were blatantly overlooked during this entire procedure.

WWII brought on a lot of social changes for many types of people, especially minorities in America. Japanese citizens in America around the coastal areas or military bases were forced to sell their homes and shops, to go to live in internment camps. The U.S. government tried to sell the idea that it was to protect Japanese Americans and send the out of harm’s way, when in actuality it was more because of the fear Americans had in the Japanese, especially since they looked different. (Document 2) The discrimination within many people because Japanese Americans were so easily identifiable is why that group of people were specifically interned and why German or Italian Americans weren’t. The government tried to make it seem like Japanese Americans were happy to leave their homes to live in the government camps set up for them to live in during the war. Women also

During WWII many civil liberties were affected and felt by the American people; some of these decisions include new policies on foreigners and civil defense groups in towns. A major facet of homefront life in WWII was the discrimination faced by Japanese/German/Italian Americans, especially the Japanese, After the attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into the war, Americans developed a fear towards immigrants and foreigners; not unlike the fear felt during the 1920’s after WWI. Local, state, and federal governments began drafting new laws and policies against persons whose ancestry is that of any of the Axis powers (Italy-Germany-Japan). For instance, a new law stated that all residents (“enemy aliens”) of German, Japanese, or Italian descent were required to register with the government, submit to fingerprinting, and list all their organizational affiliations. In addition, many of these peoples were forced to submit to curfews and travel restrictions. Furthermore, during this time, Japanese persons could not join the military until 1943 due to racism and fears of the American people. In February of 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which designated certain areas as war zones, and allowed for the removal of anyone for any reason. This led to the internment of Japanese people. Japanese-Americans were forced to either store or sell nearly all their property and belongings, only permitted to take “necessities”,

Executive Order 9066 was “authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas ‘as deemed necessary or desirable.’ The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area.”( A&E Television Networks, 2010) Executive Order 9066 would grant the federal government the authority to seize and quarantine any persons of Japanese descent that lived on the west coast of the United States or in Hawaii.

Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, racial tensions increased in the United States, especially on the West Coast (Divine 898). The anti-Japanese sentiment led to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which gave military officials the power to limit the civil rights of Japanese Americans (Danzer 802). The order also authorized the forced relocation of all Japanese Americans to concentration camps (Divine 898). These camps were located in desolate deserts and flatlands in the interior of the United States (Sato 67). Two thirds of the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were forced to relocate were “Nisei”, or native born American citizens (Divine 898).

First, prejudice played a role in the Japanese-American relocation by only moving the Japanese into internment camps and not moving people from the other enemies’ countries into camps. The United States government sent the Japanese-Americans like Jeanne and her family off to internment camps like Manzanar for a majority of the war. However, the Germans and Italians who were living in America were not sent to internment camps. The text states, “In court, the racial bias was challenged again. Why were no German Americans evacuated, it was asked, or Americans of Italian descent? Weren’t these nations our enemies too?” (91-92). That excerpt from the text shows that one cause of the relocation was definitely prejudice. If the Japanese had been evacuated, but the Germans and Italians were not, that means there was definitely prejudice. This means there was a preconceived opinion without reason about the Japanese race, most likely connected to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which caused the government to relocate the Japanese. All in all, prejudice played a role in the

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (Prange et al., 1981: p.174). On February 19, 1942, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War and Military Commanders to prescribe areas of land as excludable military zones (Roosevelt, 1942). Effectively, this order sanctioned the identification, deportation, and internment of innocent Japanese Americans in War Relocation Camps across the western half of the United States. During the spring and summer of 1942, it is estimated that almost 120,000 Japanese Americans were relocated from their homes along the West Coast and in Hawaii and

Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt was chosen for the job of defending and protecting the West Coast. He became one of the biggest supporters of evacuating the Japanese. The FBI began investigating and arresting people along the coast who were suspected of spying for enemy countries. Not only Japanese Americans were suspected. Italians and Germans were also investigated and imprisoned (Alonso). This is one fact that shows that racism was not the reason the Japanese were evacuated. Japan was the country that attacked Pearl Harbor, not Italy or Germany. DeWitt was hearing false reports of acts of disloyalty to the U.S. and sabotage on the part of Japanese Americans including unusual radio activity caused by contacting Japanese vessels, farmers burning their fields in the shapes of markers to aid Japanese pilots, and fisherman monitoring and relaying to Japan the activity of the U.S. navy (Daniels, 29). Executive Order 9066, signed by President Roosevelt, gave the military permission to label areas "military areas"and to keep out people who were seen as threats (Daniels, Appendix). DeWitt named the west coast a military area in Proclamation 1 in March 1942. This gave him the right to remove all those who threatened the safety of the U.S. from the area. Because even 100 Japanese-Americans who were still loyal to Japan could compromise the safety of the U.S., DeWitt decided that all people of Japanese ancestry had to be

The relocation of Japanese Americans was an event that occurred within the United States during World War II. On February 19th, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which forced all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast to be evacuated from the area and relocated to internment camps all across the United States, where they would be imprisoned. Approximately 120,000 people were sent to the camps and the event lasted through the years 1942 and 1945. The main cause of the relocation and internment of these people was because of fear made among Japanese people after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Citizens of the United States had been worrying about the possibility of Japanese residents of the country aiding Japan, and/or secretly trying to destroy American companies.

The Alien Act was created by the Federalists, which gave fewer rights to certain individuals, specifically immigrants, and as a result, a backlash arose creating certain laws to improve people’s right forwarding the notion that “All men are created equal.” In American political history, two laws were passed in 1798. The two laws that were passed were the Naturalization Act (repealed in 1802), and the Aliens Enemy Act which expired in 1801. During this time, America was experiencing diplomatic issues with France. The United States attempted to declare neutrality during France and Britain’s conflict in foreign interest. America signed the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, where France provided a naval fleet in order to help defeat British rule

Because roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast, isolating and interrogating each person was deemed to be too cumbersome, requiring the military to intern all Japanese Americans in a critical period of time. Enemy aliens, including the Japanese, were kept away from vulnerable and valuable military installations in the West including military bases and power plants. Major coastal cities like San Francisco and San Diego were also defined as military zones in which enemy aliens were restricted from. The West Coast was densely populated with Japanese Americans, making the civilian exclusion orders most applicable to Japanese Americans. Executive Order 9066 formally authorized military leaders to exclude certain persons from the aforementioned military zones, allowing General John DeWitt to specifically single out persons of Japanese descent in accordance with federal law.

Executive Order 9066 was signed just two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a military base in Hawaii, due to the "pressing of public necessity" as stated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President at the time of the internment. But it turns out that the only "public necessity" was racism. Asian-American discrimination can be traced back to when white workers feared Asian workers would take whites out of their jobs/businesses due to their strong work ethic or acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The facts are if you were white after Pearl Harbor, no one expected you to be a spy. Even if you had relatives from Germany, Italy, and or other enemy countries, you would not have been treated as the Asian-American population was during that time period.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war, the next ten weeks is when life for the Japanese were change. On February 19th, 1942 executive order 9066 was put into place. The order gave ”the secretary of war and military commanders… The power to exclude any persons from designated areas to secure national defense”(---). To prevent any potential sabotage 100,000 people were

The first Japanese to migrate to the United States in significant numbers did so following changes to the 1868 Meiji Restoration (Lee, L. P. 1989). They had to endure much hostility since their beginning in the US; many attributed this mentality with competitive reasons for wanting to get rid of the Japanese Americans who grew vegetables at low cost and own millions worth of California land. Following the Pearl Harbor attacks on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. According to the Washington journal,