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The Internment Of Japanese Americans

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The internment of Japanese Americans is an example of how one historical event can influence the start of another. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor created fear throughout the nation. Newspaper articles depicted Americans of Japanese descent as untrustworthy and a danger to the nation. They warned that Japanese Americans were serving as spies for their mother country. As hysteria grew, eventually all persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, including those born in the United States, were forced into internment camps from the spring of 1942 till 1946. Japanese Americans were separated from their families, robbed of their livelihood, and denied their human rights. It took the United States government nearly 50 years to apologize for their wrongdoing and provided the surviving internees with reparations for the hardships they faced. Context & Chronology The Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941 sparked an up rise in the anti-Japanese sentiment throughout the West Coast; however, hostility towards Japanese American was common in this area nearly 40 years before the attack (“Personal Justice Denied” 4). Citizens and state leaders of California were strongly against accepting the Japanese. In 1905 the anti-Japanese movement began making waves in California. On February 23, 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle issued on article with the headline: “The Japanese Invasion: The Problem of the Hour.” Soon after a series of editorials

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