Racism Against Asian Americans During Ww2

Families were separated, they had to abandon their friends, jobs, neighbor's, pet, possessions and their home. A common stereotype was that Japanese Americans were un-American (Renteln). In propaganda Japanese Americans were portrayed as dangerous people and the enemy. Even after the war, coming back home everyone tended to look and treat them differently. Specifically, in the camps they lost part of their identity due to the strict rules about no Japanese books and not speaking in Japanese this made them lose part of their culture. While the Japanese Americans were living in the internment camps, they lost their core identity, therefore it led to mental issues because they weren’t able to be themselves.

The World War 2 era provided many changes in California. With the people coming off The Great Depression during the 30’s they saw California’s economic standing, social moral, and overall mentality transform completely. Not only did the country go through something as devastating as The Depression, they are now entering into the War. With the wartime, expansion came racial discrimination for minorities, especially Japanese Americans, which resulted in one of the worst cases of mass incarceration in America’s history. While America was restarting the country’s economic growth it was sending their own citizens into internment camps, an event that would affect hundreds of thousands of Japanese American citizens for decades to come.

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

Racism has always been a huge problem, not only for the United States, but for all of Earth. Likewise, there have been many big issues brought about due to this, such as slavery, Jim Crow laws, and Jewish Concentration Camps. However, many seem to forget some of them, despite being just as bad, such as Japanese Internment Camps. Japanese Internment Camps are very similar to the Jewish Concentration Camps in several ways, and although they may not have been quite as brutal, it was another disaster caused by racism during World War I where people are killed without mercy; another unnecessary genocide route created by the fear of humans.

First of all, many Japanese Americans had to relocate to a different place. In article (Japanese American Internment Article) it says “ Japanese Americans were relocated for their own protection”. What this means is that even though some Japanese Americans were not associated with World War ll they’d still have to relocate to a different area. For concerns and safety issues.

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

Many were innocent children, women and men approximately 120,000, all held in Internment Camps across the country. Children and adults had to stand in line for many things, including eating and going to the bathroom and spent 4 years incarcerated surrounded by barbed wire.

The government's actions were in fact persuaded by war hysteria. A racist is usually known as a person who judges people of another race or ethnicity in bad ways. According to the Munson Report, there really was no “Japanese Problem on the Coast” (Munson 2). It was easy to be put on the “suspect list” due to physical appearance, in each naval district there were at least 250 to about 300 Japanese-Americans under surveillance due to their appearance. It was easy to be watched just by race, or saying somewhat something about Japan .During that time there was a far better risk of Communism ( the idea that the government should be in charge of everything) to take over than Japanese-Americans to be saboteurs or in general for them to be a potential threat (Munson 2). Also the NAACP ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) suggested that there was a greater risk of Germans and Italians on the West Coast, rather than Japanese-Americans. (Howard 3). The Japanese- Americans were not a potential threat to the United States during World War II. Putting them into internment camps was being racist toward their whole ethnic

Japanese immigrants and the following generations had to endure discrimination, racism, and prejudice from white Americans. Two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the United States government to forcibly removed thousands of Japanese-American citizens who lived on the West Coast. They would relocate them to concentration camps in remote parts of Arizona, California, Idaho, and other states in the West because of an unfair reason from white Americans due to fear and ignorance. The relocation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps was one of the most flagrant violations of civil liberties in American history. Approximately, 130,000 Japanese immigrants were relocated to these interment camps, lost their businesses, forced to give up their homes and assets in addition to their freedom. Most of the population were long-standing immigrants (Issei) who arrived before 1924 or American-born children of immigrants (Nisei) who were solid members of the community and loyal to their country.

During World War II, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent who lived on the Pacific Coast of the US were sent to internment camps after the bombing at Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7th, 1941. American citizens made up 62% of those who were interned. And even though these American citizens were being unconstitutionally blocked off from the rest of society, the majority of these citizens still declared that they remained forever loyal to America. Some of the recollections left behind by the internees of their experiences at these camps include letters to their loved ones, diaries, pictures, and even full plays. And while living in often cramped, and poorly maintained conditions, the internees still tried to lead normal lives

Like I said above, a massive number of Japanese-Americans were sent away to the Internment-Camps just because of their race for an average of 3-4 years. During those three to four years the Japanese-Americans could not attend to their jobs, property, and other obligations simply because they were in the internment camps. For reading this excerpt from Document D (Korematsu Supreme Court Ruling), you can see that the Japanese-Americans were not allowed at their houses during the time of Internment: “Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes… is inconsistent of with our basic governmental institutions.” That obviously states that Japanese-Americans were took away from their property, which would lead to loss of job, and other

Asian American and Pacific Islander women have faced up with several multiple systems of oppression that are based on gender, race, class, age, language ability, and immigrant status. These issues cause directly to sexual assault and domestic violence that some of the AAPI women experience today, and these violences will possibly be increasing rapidly among AAPI communities and families as well. In ReAppropriate Blog, it reports that about 60 percent of the incidence of sexual assault is in Asian American communities, including Cambodian, Korean, and South Asian American communities. And this blog also reveals two significant barriers that towards reporting of assault. The first barrier is a cultural stigma. Many survivors were afraid to report

( historical overview of Japanese American Internment)The United States deemed that they have every right to do whatever they must do to protect the American majority during a time of war. In 1946 all internment camps were closed, and everyone was allowed to return to their homes.(Japanese Internment Camps) By this time, many had lost their homes and other possessions. In 1948 the government provided reimbursement to those who lost property during this time.(Japanese Internment Camps) They reimbursed each citizen interned an amount of $23,000 USD.(Japanese Internment

Most of them were born in America and had a citizen ship. This act caused families to sell their houses/businesses (EX: Farms) and most of the time never get them back. Ten internment camps were established in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas, even holding around 120,000 people. Japanese-Americans were also known as ‘Nisei’, which is a term meaning they were children born to Japanese people. The internment camps had housing, mess halls and schools and adults were only allowed to work for $5 per day, if they wanted to.

In the United States, prejudice, propaganda, and power were collective factors influencing discrimination against Japanese Americans before, and during World War II, but the bombing of Pearl harbor catapulted the greatest violation of civil rights against a minority group during this time with the issuance of Executive Order 9066, which ordered their confinement.