The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor heralded an unfortunate era for Japanese-Americans due to the decisions made by the United States government. At the time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decried the attack as an event “which will live in infamy,” unanimously uniting the Houses of Congress behind him with a declaration of war against Japan (Roosevelt). With the military and navy ordered to use “ all measures...for our defense,” a policy of internment for Japanese-Americans emerged (Roosevelt). This policy, fueled by wartime hysteria and prejudice, declared American citizens to be “illegal aliens” (Kashiwahara). Their previous housing arrangements liquidated and their belongings seized, Japanese-Americans faced a future of many “years in camp, behind barbed wire fences” with families living in “cramped, one-room quarters”
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However, I do not believe that a policy such as the internment camps would ever survive on the global stage. With just the description of these facilities, the Nazi concentration camps come to mind. The idea of the media and the world standing by as an ethnic or cultural group are forced to live in awful conditions and possibly face unimaginable horrors is inconceivable. Numerous world treaties and organizations were created to monitor the activities of their participants to ensure proper conduct.
While I do not believe that a policy of internment of minority American citizens is a possible future, racist legislation and policy is still very much a conceivable future. Currently, there are many policies in place that have a goal of improving and aiding the lives of minority citizens in society. These laws could conceivably be repealed in the event of government aided discrimination that would worsen the lives of the previous
However, I do not believe that a policy such as the internment camps would ever survive on the global stage. With just the description of these facilities, the Nazi concentration camps come to mind. The idea of the media and the world standing by as an ethnic or cultural group are forced to live in awful conditions and possibly face unimaginable horrors is inconceivable. Numerous world treaties and organizations were created to monitor the activities of their participants to ensure proper conduct.
While I do not believe that a policy of internment of minority American citizens is a possible future, racist legislation and policy is still very much a conceivable future. Currently, there are many policies in place that have a goal of improving and aiding the lives of minority citizens in society. These laws could conceivably be repealed in the event of government aided discrimination that would worsen the lives of the previous