The Effects Of Japanese Internment Camps During WWII

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the internment of Japanese Americans on the West coast of the United States. On going tension between the United States and Japan rose in the 1930’s due to Japan’s increasing power and because of this tension the bombing at Pearl Harbor occurred. This event then led the United States to join World War II. However it was the Executive Order of 9066 that officially led to the internment of Japanese Americans. Japanese Americans, some legal and illegal residents, were moved into internment camps between 1942-1946. The internment of Japanese Americans affected not only these citizens but the

The camps that the Japanese-Americans were taken to had the worse conditions imaginable. “More than 120,000 Americans of Japanese Ancestry were incarcerated in 10 camps scattered throughout the Western United States during World War II” (Children of the Camps Project 1). Detainees spent many years in these camps. They were locked behind barbed wire fences, and armed guards patrolled the camps. The conditions were comparable to the Jewish camps in Eastern Europe. Entire families lived in quarters that were poorly constructed and horribly cramped. These areas were also unbearably cramped and unclean. There was also no hot water for dishes or showers in the living quarters. In addition, lice was a huge problem in the internment camps. These camps and the laws that our government passed against the Japanese community were atrocious. The United States experienced a terrible tragedy when Pearl Harbor was attacked. However, the American government had no right to make these innocent Americans prisoners of war. During the 1940s and 1950s the Japanese

Japanese-American Internment was the relocation of many Japanese-American and Japanese descendents into camps known as “War Relocation Camps” during World War II (specifically after the attack on Pearl Harbor). In 1942, the United States government relocated and interned approximately 120,000 Japanese-American citizens and people of Japanese descent into relocation camps. This internment lasted for about four years, and was backed by the government as well as the president. The last relocation camp was closed in January 1946, five months after World War II officially ended.

The Fifteen-Year War was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in Japan. Various facets of the country were tested and driven to their limits. During the occupation, race and gender began to evolve in ways that had not exactly be seen before. War had a tremendous impact on every part of the life of a Japanese citizen. Both men and women began to fill roles that were completely novel to them. Race became a part of the definition of who people were. As the war progressed and American troops landed on Japanese soil for occupation, more drastic changes occurred. Economic hardship and rations befell the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. Prostitution began to rear its ugly head and rape transpired. Through memory, research, and vivid

Everyone that even looked to be Japanese would be mistrusted and be labeled as “the enemy.” On February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt issued an executive order which rounded up every Japanese person that lived in the US as they were seen to be threats to the nation. Many endured names such as being called an “alien.” In March, the government shipped the Japanese to relocation camps where they were sure to be not in contact with the enemy. Any former possession that the internees might had had were usually gone shortly afterwards as their lands would be repressed. Despite the fact that most of these Japanese were Nisei, native-born American citizens whose parents were Japanese, and that some volunteered for military service they were still put into these camps. They were housed in barracks and used communal areas, for washing and eating. Over half of those taken in were merely children. These camps were then overseen by military personnel. All internees over the age of 17 were given a loyalty test were they were asked questions. 120,000 Japanese were taken in, and only 60,000 survived. In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed legislation which awarded formal payments of $20,000 each to the surviving internees. At the end of the war some remained in the US and rebuilt their lives, others however were unforgiving and returned to Japan.

The American government evacuated approximately 120,000 Japanese Nationals, American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, and placed them in internment camps at the beginning of World War II. Japanese Americans were forced from their homes and businesses, forced into relocation camps in the deserts of California, Arizona, into the mountains of Idaho, and small towns in the southern United States. These were Japanese American people of unquestionable loyalty to the United States. These were citizens denied the rights of normal citizens under the United States Constitution. Americans who had volunteered to fight in the war for the United States, and against the Japan. They wanted to fight for the United

     Unfortunately, the Japanese-Americans living on the west coast were given no time to show what their loyalties were: they were expelled from the area. They were shipped off to remote locations in the more barren sections of the country. The living conditions at the camps were inadequate at best. Residents were forced to endure extreme cold and extreme heat, cramped living spaces, poor meals, and a lack of indoor plumbing. The whole time, they were under the watchful eyes of armed military police. They were treated as prisoners.

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.

Imagine putting yourself in a scenario where extreme racial discrimination was in action and you were being taken into an internment camp, whether you were pleaded guilty or not. This was reality for the majority of Japanese American during the time of world war two. In the memoir Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes the injustice committed against the 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry who were interred by America during World War 2.

Japanese Americans during World War II were displaced from their homes and placed in concentration camps (Takaki, 147). “In the War, we are now engaged in racial affinities are not severed by immigrations” (Takaki, 148). Furthermore, Japanese Americans were not citizens due to the exclusion of Asian people

The Japanese-American placement in internment camps was wrong and unconstitutional. The Japanese-American people had been living in the United States without question until the uprise of racial prejudice brought on by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many Japanese-Americans had been born in America and lived an American life, integrated into American schools, speaking with American accents, and enjoying American culture. But, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese were suddenly seen as threats that needed to be controlled. Without any consent, these Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps with poor conditions and treated as if they were ticking time bombs themselves.

Much later in 1988, the U.S. Congress felt sorry for what they had done to the Japanese Americans, apologizing for the internment. Japanese Americans were interned from 1942 until World War II concluded in 1945. More than 110,000 people were interned, and almost two thirds of them were American citizens. The U.S.’s involvement in World War II was because of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his reasons for the forced internment, leaving some to believe that they were wrong.

As stated in the book After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics the Japanese were, “Barred from citizenship by their adopted land, the immigrants were thereby transformed at a stroke into enemy aliens by the outbreak of war be-tween the United States and Japan,”(Robinson 2). This is similar to the book When the Emperor was Divine statement that ” In class we sat in the back where we hoped we would not be noticed. ”(Otsuka 121) Thus, it is clear there were barriers and persecution of the Japanese that devastated the Japanese in every aspect, and the complete violation of any American citizen. Yet, there are slight differences in the time preceding the Internment Camps.

another culture can be full of surprises. Just ask any foreign woman who has given birth in Japan.