On the morning of December 7, 1941, a large Japanese aircraft carrier strike force launched a surprise military attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Five battleships and nine smaller warships were sunk and three other battleships were heavily damaged. In addition, 188 planes were destroyed and 2403 people were killed. In 1942, two months after the Japanese attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War Henry Stimson to move civilians as necessary into “relocation camps”. Military officials on the West Coast, acting under the directive moved over 110,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. This controversial event was known as the Japanese-American Internment. …show more content…
For more than 200 years, people of Japanese Ancestry have made their home in America. They came to this country because of the poor political and economic conditions back home, as well as the possibility of finding employment as sugar planters in America. During the period of 1891 to 1900, approximately 26,000 Japanese immigrated to America (see Appendix I). During the period of 1901 to 1910, approximately 130,000 Japanese immigrated to America (see Appendix I). There was a fivefold increase in the number of Japanese immigrants in ten years. This proliferation of Japanese in America led to the birth of a movement known as the “Anti-Japanese Movement.” This movement was led by anti-Japanese organizations such as the Japanese Exclusion League, the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, and the American Legion, as well as prominent political leaders. Influenced by these organizations, politicians passed a series of legislations limiting the rights of the Japanese and their possibility of immigration. In 1913, politicians passed the California’s Anti-Alien Land Act, which prevented Issei, first-generation Japanese Americans, from owning land. In 1907, the government passed the Gentlemen’s Agreement in which President Theodore Roosevelt severely restricted Japanese immigration to America. Immigration was cut off completely when Congress passed the National Origins Act of 1924, which prevented immigration by aliens who were deemed ineligible for citizenship. One Issei who wanted to become a U.S. citizen was Takao Ozawa. He arrived in the United States as a student in 1894, and attended schools in California, including the University of California, Berkeley. In 1914, he filed an application for U.S citizenship. His application for citizenship was denied because the court declared that Ozawa was “in every way eminently qualified under the
World War II, the most patriotic time to live in the United States of America. Americans were able to prove themselves like they never had before. Most of the men across the continent signed up to be a part of the war, and the women helped with the jobs that those men left behind. Although this moment is a turning point in history, the greatest time to be an American, the Japanese American people could disagree. The treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II is constantly overlooked though. Around one hundred twenty thousand Japanese American people were forced into concentration camps based solely on if they or their parents were born in Japan. Although the United States was in a national emergency, Japanese Americans should not have been forced into internment because they were American citizens, it was not justified, and it transpired because of substandard political leadership.
Japanese internment camps from 1942 to 1946 were an exemplification of discrimination, many Japanese Americans were no longer accepted in their communities after the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. They were perceived as traitors and faced humiliation due to anti-Japanese sentiment causing them to be forced to endure several hardships such as leaving behind their properties to go an imprisoned state, facing inadequate housing conditions, and encountering destitute institutions. The Bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941 (Why I Love a Country that Once Betrayed Me). This led president Roosevelt to sign the executive order 9066, which authorized the army to remove any individual that seemed as a potential threat to the nation (“Executive Order 9066”) This order allowed the military to exclude “‘any or all persons from designated areas, including the California coast.”’ (Fremon 31). Many Japanese opposed to leave the Pacific Coast on their own free will (Fremon 24) . Japanese Americans would not be accepted in other areas if they moved either.Idaho’s governor stated, Japanese would be welcomed “only if they were in concentration camps under guard”(Fremon 35). The camps were located in Arizona, Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and California where thousands of Japanese Americans eventually relocated. (“Japanese Americans at Manzanar”) The internment lasted for 3 years and the last camp did not close until 1946. (Lessons Learned: Japanese Internment During WW2)
Ten weeks after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) singed an Executive Order of 9066 that authorized the removal of any people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable”(FDR). The west coast was home of majority of Japanese Americans was considered as military areas. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans was sent and were relocated to the internment camps that were built by the United States. Of the Japanese that were interned, 62 percent were Nisei (American born, second generation) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese) the rest of them were Issai Japanese immigrants. Americans of
Shortly after the first bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the American people’s fear of the Japanese grew dramatically, especially for those Japanese living in America. Almost every Japanese American was seen as a threat to the country. On February 19th, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, authorizing the relocation of Japanese Americans to camps further inland. Over 175,000 Japanese Americans were affected in some way by the order, even though more than 70,000 of them were born in the United States and were American citizens. The common perspective of the American people was shown through their use of the expression “A Jap’s a Jap,” virtually destroying the thought that any
Was President Roosevelt justified in ordering Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of Japanese American citizens. I believe that he was justified in putting them into internment camps because we didn't know whether or not they could be trusted.
Do you really think it was okay for the U.S. government to relocate a whole race of people away from their homes, businesses, and friends? And all of this is due to the fault of a group of people they personally don't know? This is in response to the United States government of relocating the Japanese. Also, During this time, there were plenty of Italian and German folks roaming the american land.The question that will be answered today is,”Was it okay to relocate Japanese-Americans into camps?” The reason it was not was because of communism inside the country, racism, and unconstitutional moves.
When Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942,1 thousands of Japanese-American families were relocated to internment camps in an attempt to suppress supposed espionage and sabotage attempts on the part of the Japanese government. Not only was this relocation based on false premises and shaky evidence, but it also violated the rights of Japanese-Americans through processes of institutional racism that were imposed following the events of Pearl Harbor. Targeting mostly Issei and Nisei citizens, first and second generation Japanese-Americans respectively,2 the policy of internment disrupted the lives of families, resulting in a loss of personal property, emotional distress,
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many people were dubious towards many Japanese-Americans and believed they were working with Japan. With this, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, moving several Japanese-Americans into concentration camps, calling it a “military necessity” (Ewers 1). When this happened, many Japanese-Americans lost everything they had owned such as houses, farms, and their rights as American citizens.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Many Americans were afraid of another attack, so the state representatives pressured President Roosevelt to do something about the Japanese who were living in the United States at the time. President Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066 which allowed local military commanders to designate military areas as exclusion zones, from which any or all persons may be excluded. Twelve days later, this was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast. This included all of California and most of Oregon and Washington.
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).
The decision to imprison Japanese Americans was a popular one in 1942. It was supported not only by the government, but it was also called for by the press and the people. In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, Japan was the enemy. Many Americans believed that people of Japanese Ancestry were potential spies and saboteurs, intent on helping their mother country to win World War II. “The Japanese race is an enemy race,” General John DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command wrote in February 1942. “And while many second and third generation Japanese born in the United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are
Startled by the surprise attack on their naval base at Pearl Harbor and anxious about a full-fledged Japanese attack on the United States’ West Coast, American government officials targeted all people of Japanese descent, regardless of their citizenship status, occupation, or demonstrated loyalty to the US. As my grandfather—Frank Matsuura, a nisei born in Los Angeles, California and interned in the Granada War Relocation Center (Camp Amache)—often
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.
Some of the Japanese had come down to America to give their children a better life and so they don’t have to be limited to the to just the low or mid-class although when they go to the states they were discriminated against because they were from Japan and because they didn’t follow the same culture as all the other Americans. Even though they should’ve had their human rights those rights were completely revoked from them after the Pearl Harbor bombing, in which president Roosevelt initiated Executive Order 9066 in which all Japanese, including Japanese Americans get sent to internment just because they had Japanese heritage. They stayed in these internment camps for three and one half years living in poor conditions where they had to build their own huts all due to the fact that the president had feared what they could do for revenge
The Japanese-American Internment was a necessary choice, made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It helped to make our nation secure during times of extreme emergency and it also helped the US government to keep their enemy under watch. “The story of how Japanese American soldiers from the war’s most highly decorated US military unit came to be there is just one part of a remarkable saga. It is also a story of one of the darkest periods in American history, one filled with hardship, sacrifice, courage, injustice, and finally, redemption. It began more than a hundred years ago” (Sandler, 2013, p. 6). At the turn of the 21st century began the immigration of the Japanese to America for various reasons, but all with one thing in mind: freedom. “We talked about America; we dreamt about America. We all had one wish – to be in America” (Sandler, 2013, p. 6). The decision by these many people was a grueling and tough decision, but they knew it would benefit them in the long run. “…like their European counterparts, they were willing to risk everything to begin life anew in what was regarded as a golden land of opportunity” (Sandler, 2013, p. 6). When they came to America, they were employed and were able to begin their new lives for the first part of it.