Japanese Internment
By lassy2
JAPANESE INTERNMENT DURING WORLD WAR II
December 7, 1941, was “a date which will live in infamy” as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated in his speech to Congress, when he declared war against Japan. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor in the islands of Hawaii. Within 24 hours, Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Midway Island were also attacked (Lowman 8). The invasion of the countries led to the evacuation and internment of Japanese residents in the USA. Whether the internment was necessary remained a controversy for many years. The pattern of hardship endured by Japanese immigrants in the US began many years back.
In the early 1900’s the Japanese in the US were hard working farmers and laborers. On the west coast they were considered good “orchardists” growing peaches, prunes, apricots, and strawberries (Girdner and Loftis 82). They were also good fishermen. In places such as Monterey and San Diego, California, the Japanese owned many boats, and they were thought of as able to withstand longer fishing hours with more efficiency (84). In the east coast, it was more difficult for the Japanese to get into fishing business because of the increased discrimination against them.
The Japanese were kept in different schools and were not allowed to own land. They were segregated from the rest of society (Alonso 16). An account of Harry Akune, a Japanese American follows:
“I wanted to be an accountant and in order to do that I had to have at least two years of intern[-ship] under a CPA, and being that I was in Chicago I thought I had a pretty good opportunity to do that instead of in California, well almost every time I applied for a job or went for an interview, the answer usually was, 'I think you’re well qualified, but I don’t know how my clients would react to have an oriental looking into their books.'”
(Oral Histories, Go For Broke)
In 1908, a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” was made between the United States and Japan which simply made Japanese immigration to the US difficult (Girdner and Loftis 54). Racial tensions surfaced when in 1924 the US Naturalization Act prevented the Japanese born residents, called Issei, from becoming true US citizens. The Issei were also prevented from marrying Caucasians or attending the public schools (Alonso 15-16).
Two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor (February 19, 1942), President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066. This authorized the exclusion of persons from sensitive military areas as deemed necessary by the Secretary of War. Although the Executive Order did not specify who was to be excluded, the government’s target was the 58,000 Italian, 22,000 German, and 112,000 of Japanese descent who were already living on the west coast (Lowman 8). The large number of Japanese sent to military camps was due to the increasing espionage and the ongoing fear of another attack by the Japanese on the Western US coast. Protection from Japanese espionage and sabotage was deemed necessary because of the many messages intercepted from the US to Japan (7).
The internment camps went on from 1942 through 1946. Most of the internment camps holding people of Japanese descent were located in states such as California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and as far east as Arkansas (Harth 283). Some internment camps had ready made structures of wood frame with extra insulation of tar paper on the outside while other centers were hastily made (Alonso 42). A happy memory of the internment was recounted from Yogi Ozaki who was sent to a camp in Manzanar, California.
“I recall one of the things I enjoyed the most was starlight-serenade. We had music to entertain us in the evening and Manzanar was high up. It appeared as if the stars were on top of us and I really enjoyed it. I don’t recall the fact that we were incarcerated.”
(Oral Histories, Go For Broke)
Kenjiro Akune had different memories of the encampment, he recollected:
“In April or May we went to Merced Assembly center, we left there in late August to be shipped to Colorado. What can you do? We get whatever we had to do. I washed dishes. We did a lot of wood carving to pass the time away. The living conditions were very poor, they were wood with tar on the side partitions periodically laid just enough to have a place to sleep and that was it…”
(Oral Histories, Go For Broke)
Of the 112,000 Japanese sent to internment camps, 71,000 were US citizens or Nisei, while 40,000 were considered enemy aliens (Lowman 12). The encampment of all Japanese was done not only to prevent Japanese espionage, but also to protect the Japanese already in the US (74).
The US internment camps held 11,000 Germans and 10,000 Italians. The barracks of the Germans were similar to the Japanese barracks, of wood and tar. Other than being held in several different areas and having a significantly smaller number, the German’s treatment while being in the internment camps was similar to that of the Japanese. Many of the Japanese internment camps were later used for German internment camps (Jacobs, World War II: the Internment of German American Civilians; Brooke, German Internment and Italian Internment during WWII).
After the internment of the Japanese, many people lost their businesses, homes, and personal property. They were left to start over. Their life continued with the struggle of recreating everything they had lost (Alonso 36). Harry Abe, an internee of Tule Lake saw the devastation when he came back home from the internment camp. He recollected;
“My dad and brother opted to rent it [the business] to a friend across the street and since we were far from town they put their things in the basement and when we came back from camp the things weren't there.”
(Oral Histories, Go For Broke)
The war ended in 1945. The last of the internees left the camps in 1946 after the federal government lifted the ban excluding Japanese from sensitive military areas (Hirasuna 123). Two years later the government passed the American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 which allowed those who were in the internment camps to file claims against the US government to pay back for losses, such as property or money, during the Japanese encampment (Alonso 97).
In 1971 President Richard Nixon signed a law that required action from congress before anything similar to the Executive Order 9066 was issued (99) . Forty years after the evacuation, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which would pay $20,000 dollars to every person who was interned (Alonso 105; Hirasuna 124).
Court cases continued against the federal government. The cases were filed by Fred Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui against the US government (Alonso 46). They continued to argue on the whether the internment of the Japanese was necessary.
The debate on whether the internment was a necessary action on the part of the government is still an issue. There is an opinion that the internment was done for other reasons and was thought to be part of a large war hysteria (Lowman 346). Tetsuden Kashima argued in his book Personal Justice Denied that “If intelligence is to serve the ends of society which places central value on personal liberty, even in time of war, it must not be overwhelmed by rumors and flights of fancy which grip a fearful, jittery public” (347).
A counter argument to justify the internment of the Japanese were the facts that the entire US intelligence community were unequivocal in warning of widespread and ongoing espionage operations controlled by the Japanese government on the West coast”(Lowman 3). The edict of internment was a military necessity because of known Japanese loyalty to their emperor. And yet, the espionage activities continued in the internment camps.
As this debate continues, the Japanese in the US have moved beyond their experience in the internment camps. They are integrated in the American society and schools. As we see around our communities, there are Japanese Americans, Nisei, who are successful business and political partners in the US.
Bibliography
BooksAlonso, Karen. Korematsu v. United States: Japanese American Internment Camps. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers Inc. 1998Girdner, Audrie and Annie Loftis. The Great Betrayal. Toronto, Canada: The Macmillan Company, 1969Harth, Erica. Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans. New York: Palgrave, 2001Hirasuna, Delphine. The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts of the Japanese Internment Camps 1942-1946. Berkeley, Ten Speed Press, 2000. Lowman, David D. Magic: The Untold story of US Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residence from the West Coast during WWII. Twickenham, UK: Athena Press, 2001 Electronic Sources"Oral Histories: Videos." Go For Broke National Eduacation Center. 2007. Go For Broke. Accessed May 3 2007. <http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/oral_histories_video.asp>.Brooke, James. "German and Italian Internment during WWII." German Americana. August 11 1997. Accessed. May 3 2007. <http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/itintern.htm>.Jacobs, Arthur D.. "World War II - The internment of German American civilians." The Freedom of Information Times. June 2003. Accessed. May 3 2007. <http://www.foitimes.com/>.
Comments
fuck you
thats not very nice to say but then again maybe because this is a web site about Japanese people in camps then it is ok to say that specialy since there is a picture of little Japanese kids on it to. so i really don't care then.
Pretty solid, good research
I say that the japs were lucky we didnt treat them like the germans treated the jews always complaining we didnt even get gas chambers we were so nice.
Very well written. I regret and wish Americans never had such like camps. May the Japanese forgive the atrocities placed on them.
It always comes down to the rich against the poor rather than race. Japs, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Italians, Germans, Irish, etc. War breeds poverty and capitalism is evil!!
america sure was sippin on that haterade.
i feel so bad for them but its true they were lucky compared to the jews who would do something like that?!?!
you all are so stupid... they were luck. No you are luck because you didnt have to go through that. How can you say that they were luck. They got taken from their homes and were forced to be in camps how in the world is that luck. You all have some mental problems if you all think that they are luck.
yeah sure i read the comments about the germany treating jews bad, but thats not the issue. The issue is we treated someone negativly because of their race. And if we put people in camps then we're just as bad as any other nazi land noob.
What a bunch of Crap we didnt put them in those camps because were racist it was because we had to protect our Country. We didnt treat them bad. we took thousands of people from their homes to protect millions of people. We dont live in a perfect world. You dont like this country why dont you just move.
I feel ofended
I think it is ridiculous to say that the Japanese Americans were lucky that they weren't gassed. You're an idiot, skeans. These people were seperated from their families, for 2-3 years. They were told to pack up and leave. For the simple fact that they were Japanese. They weren't allowed to live a regular life, they weren't allowed to leave the camps unless they joined the army forces. I am about Patriotism, but use freedom as a weapon to recruit..thats low. We as America take so much pride in saying that we fought against the nazis, but we did the same.
idk what to say
chinks
fuck all this . i did alot of research on the internment of japanese. americans are guilty of hypocrisy because they took so much pride saying that we fought against the nazis but we actually did what was similar to them and thats de humanizing a group of people all because odf their fucking race. now thats low .everyone else can suck itt because if that happened to them they would know exaclty how the japanese felt at the time.
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Hi, I would like to know if there are any survivors from the camps that are in San Diego?
Thank You,
stevemcgrw@yahoo.com
What i'm dying to know is who benefitted (got the the land) from Japanese internement in ww2. I can't find this information anywhere. Please help of you can.
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when was that back in 1975
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@Fre Franz
Some Japanese left their land in the care of neighbors whom they trusted. Others simply packed up and left because the order for their detention was on such short notice. It's highly personal. My grandfather simply left his land because he had no one to give it to.
i like cheese with japanese blood i hate them my doggy died in the bombing of pearl harbo
aweswome
this is a very nice summery
i dont get it
This is a terrible nightmare for the Japanese Americans!
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this suckss.
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waller is a Meanie.
"japs" is an offensive term. Also this is very sad, honestly this happended because of a racial barrier. Have you ever thought how the innocent people in this camp felt. Instead of making fun of Japanese people, embrace their story. GETS LIFES, and make a difference in the world.
I cant believe about the man who hats japanese because his stupid dog died in pearl harbor. Please dude get a life...........
maybe some of the japs were innocent, but what about the ones that weren't. At the time, America's leader did what they thought was neccacary to protect our wonderful country. The Japense our lucky we just didnt send them back to their own country. whether or not it was wrong, it happened and we should not appologize for it.i
Some people on this post are incredibly insensitive, and to a larger extent show their ignorance of, not only the world, but an important American historical event. Become educated, please.
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this thread is not about hotdogs it about the way the Japanese were treated during WW2.
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This stuff is interesting
for you who are cussing, knock it off!! If yu dont like it get over it, we dont need your cussing, some people find it interesting! Either grow up and act your age or get your but kickedd!!
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The U.S. is guilty of hypocrisy because they are so proud of themselves for fighting against the Nazis during the Holocaust when the U.S. did something a lot similar to the Japanese. The Japanese in the internment camps suffered a lot, physically and emotionally when taken from their homes in Japan to the U.S. and to live under very poor conditions. The U.S stuffs their mouths talking about how they are the land of freedom and how no human shall be treated unfairly but all of that was just a big lie back then and it still goes on today. The U.S. thought they were saving their country by bringing the Japanese, which were the enemy at that time, into the U.S. which makes absolutely no sense. America did not stop and think about the Japanese who were not even involved with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All they did was think of the thousands of workers they would bring in from Japan who would have to be forced to work in the fields or gain freedom by enrolling for the military.
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Wow X3 u r a retard and u r sitting right beside me.
Thats not funny
Whatever
last time i check . this was all wrong this isnt right for the people to do this to the chinks of the usa they hasd so much to live for but then again they could have died in a car carsh you know chicks cant drive :3
cAROLiNE hELU 4 years ago
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