Japanese Internment Camp Dbq Essay

Superior Essays
World War II was the war that was never expected; it was never supposed to happen nor was America supposed to join in. In the middle of our Great Depression Hitler began to gain popularity, similar to the way FDR gained his popularity; through promised hope and dreams of a better country. Hitler was making several promises to his people during his gain of power, so people were prone to accept his ideas, even if radical, because of his amazing promises of a great Germany. While all of the Hitler commotion was taking everyone’s attention, Japan was busy invading China. Japan started with an invasion in Manchuria on September 13, 1931 (Doc Background). The Second Sino-Japanese war began July 7, 1937, two years before the official beginning …show more content…
They made the final decisions to relocate every Japanese-American person in the U.S. Everyone had just assumed that anyone who looked Japanese was either a spy or a terrorist waiting to attack, either way they were dangerous. There is no doubt that there were spies and dangerous terrorists in the U.S at this time, however, relocating each and every Japanese-American seems a bit over the top. February 19, 1842 marked the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized that the military relocate the Japanese-Americans; he states that the military has the right to “prescribe military areas” as proper bases for the internment camps (Doc 2). FDR gave authority to any and all military leaders to relocate the Japanese-Americans. A representative from California tried to justify the internment camps by comparing it to a soldier’s sacrifice of his life. He says that if the Japanese are true to America they will relocate with pride because it is an honor to serve your country in any way possible. However using a soldier’s sacrifice to compare with the ‘sacrifice’ the Japanese have to make somewhat implies that they will die in the camps (there was a low chance of men coming back from war) (Doc 4). The government wanted the camps to last, so they created a list of justifications, to make the camps seem okay and practical to anyone against them (Doc

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Executive Order 9056

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The order, stating that the Secretary of War and his Military Commanders should “prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion” (Exec. Order 9066, 1942). The order, worded specifically to be absent of any mention of race, was in fact designed to specifically target Japanese-Americans, vesting within the Secretary of War and his Commanders the power to decide where the military zones would be and who should be removed. This allowed the Secretary of War to specifically target people of Japanese heritage, even those of as little as one-sixteenth Japanese heritage, and remove them from their homes. Over 110,000 people with these traces of Japanese lineage were forced to leave the entire West Coast, except for within government internment camps. In an even more haunting excerpt from the executive order, the president writes that “the designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General… and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said proclamations” (Exec.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Executive Order 9056 Essay

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages

    First hand reports entail numerous sightings of Japanese Navy ships reconnoitering a multitude of areas close to high concentrated population of Japanese Americans. This may be purely coincidence, however, the American government decided to move the Japanese populations to secured camps for security. Furthermore, with confusion and fear of another attack, the American population turned their backs on those of Japanese descent and started to suspect them of such crimes, as a result the citizens antagonized their government until such actions were taken. Consequently, once the action the American citizens so desired had been carried out, it solidified their beliefs that the Japanese population were untrustworthy, because if the government took the effort and time to move the Japanese away, they must think the same as the American citizens. Not only solidifying beliefs, it began a cycle.…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    After the attack on Pearl Harbor, United States started to be prejudice towards the Japanese-Americans. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which allows the United States to put Japanese-Americans into Internment camps. The U.S were looking out for Japanese spies, over 100,00 Japanese-Americans were sent to the to 10 different locations of camps. Since Japanese-Americans were considered a threat to the country, they gave them all two days to get the items they needed, and they could only take two bags to their internment camps. Throughout their four years in the Internment Camps, many of the Japanese-Americans volunteered in the Military, while their families were still in the camps.…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Public Proclamation No-21

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages

    This created controversy over how long these prisoners had to stay in the camps and if FDR made the right decision by issuing EO 9066. I believe that it was FDR’s personal responsibility, his job as the Commander and Chief of the Army and Navy, to issue the order to try and keep our country safe. In the beginning 1942, there was a lot of pressure put on to the United States government by its citizens about what the consequences that they Japanese would face after the brutal attack on the naval base of Pearl Harbor. FDR, his appointed members of the Cabinet, the vice president, and many other governmental figures, met together to try and come up with the best course of action for how the nation should respond to this incident and came up with Executive Order 9066, making it legal to put Japanese, German, Italian or a mix of one of those…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Instead of interning only the ones that could be suspected to possibly spying on the United States, they decided to intern everyone. Think about if you would want to be sent to basically a prison camp because someone in your neighborhood broke the law. That is pretty much what you the government is doing to the Japanese Americans. That is the final reason why Japanese American internment was…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Japanese Internment Camps Many events happen around the world, but most of them aren 't taught in history. We all know about Stalin 's Russia, who sent people who opposed his rules and judgements to Siberia. Then there is Hitler 's Germany, who targeted Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped for not being Arian. What about America?…

    • 1655 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in Korematsu vs. United States, as a protection against espionage and sabotage. President Roosevelt had the master plan of Putting many Japanese-Americans in camps because it was to protect the rest of the United States from “loyal Japanese” who may be spies and help Japan. Those who cooperated with going to the camps meant loyalty to the United States by assisting in war effort. In an article called “Japanese American Internment During War World II” says, that President Carter, the 39th president, appointed a committee to look back into the Japanese American internment. The committee proved that the Japanese- Americans weren’t put into the camps to protect American grounds from threats, but because of prejudice.…

    • 231 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In no point in the Executive Order did Roosevelt acknowledge Japanese people. He only established that the internment would be for the safety of the United States in order to protect the country against espionage. As a result of this, racial prejudice is limited as the Executive Order did not specify the race of the citizens that would be placed in internment camps. As a whole, immediately following the Pearl Harbor attacks, the internment of Japanese-Americans was done with good reason because Executive Order 9066 never stated the race of the people who would be placed in internment…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Internment camps were camps set up by the government to put all the people of Japanese ancestry. The U.S. took 115,000 Japanese Americans into these highly secured camps. These camps, forced people to leave their homes and be placed under surveillance. Japanese Americans were placed in camps for three main reasons. First reason was for their race.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American prisoners of war, Japanese-Americans, and the Japanese in Hiroshima all suffered during World War Two. The American POWs were starved and beaten. Japanese Americans were forced from their homes to live in internment camps. Japanese in Hiroshima had a bomb dropped on them and their lives destroyed. Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman stated "War is Cruelty."…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    On March 18, 1942, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) was created by Executive Order 9066. The WRA generated ten permanent camps that would relocate Japanese Americans and alien residents to camps that would be their prisons until March 1946. The Japanese Americans that were affected were Nisei, Issei, and Kibei. Because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans believed that anyone with Japanese ancestry was dangerous. Although they were American citizens and should have been protected under the Constitution, they were not.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Starting in 1942, many Japanese-Canadians living near the British Columbia coast were relocated, and eventually put into internment camps, as Canadians believed if they were to be attacked by the Japanese, local residents would attempt to aid them. Despite the modern thoughts on the Japanese-Canadian internment, Canadians during World War II, specifically those living in British Columbia, believed that the Japanese deserved to be interned, as the majority of them felt unsafe with their presence. The Japanese-Canadian internment during World War II was not morally incorrect at the time because the government wanted to protect their people, the Japanese were viewed as evil, disloyal people by Canadian citizens and government, and the internment…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In 1942 many Japanese Americans were faced with a problem that most Americans will never experience. They were ripped of their American lives and rights and placed in Internment camps. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that was put in place "to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine from which any or all persons may be excluded." () Because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the government believed that Japanese Americans were a threat to society. Although some may be a threat, imprisoning a whole group of people just based on race, was not the civil way of going about the issue.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An analysis of contrasting approaches to topics of the Japanese Canadian Internment camps The Japanese internment camps reflect a dark time in Canadian history, where mass fear and racial hatred led to a tragic violation of human rights and liberties. Two articles, “Passing Time, Moving Memories: Interpreting Wartime Narratives of Japanese Canadian Women” by Pamela Sugiman and “British Columbia and the Japanese Evacuation” By Peter Ward, take on contrasting approaches to this issue, with the former noticeably more intimate and in depth in its approach in collecting information about the internment camps. In this article analysis I will provide detail about the key arguments in each article, compare their respective approaches and content,…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Over 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and be relocated into poorly constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers. " Most of these centers were poorly constructed military barracks with no plumbing of any type of cooking facilities. In addition, many families were so hastily forced out of there homes that families did not have sufficient time to pack and prepare for proper weather conditions, and some families were forced to leave with just the clothes on their backs. Some internment camps, such as the Heart Mountain War Relocation center in northwestern Wyoming, was just a portion of land with cramped military barracks, unpartitioned toilets, cots for beds, and a barb-wired fence surrounding it all. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled that the holding of loyal American citizens unconstitutional, and by 1945 the government began releasing individuals to return to their previous lives, many of whom had no lives to return…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays