Essay On Japanese Internment

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Over 100,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during WWII. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry (CITE 1). The Japanese Internment was a dark time in United States History. The incarceration of these Japanese Americans was largely motivated by racial prejudices that had already formed decades before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, wartime hysteria and paranoia increased anti-Japanese sentiments that led to the internment. The biggest controversy surrounding this was the fact that most of these people were American citizens, who were stripped of their constitutional rights and liberties, and detained in the name of “military necessity.” 43 years after WWII, the U.S. Government tried to make good and apologize…show more content…
Many were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestry land despite two-thirds of them being born in the United States. Lt. General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Command, reflected these fears when he stated, “They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty. It makes no difference if he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty. We must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.” (CITE). These fears along with wartime hysteria pressured President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” (CITE 6). The military took this to mean the entire west coast, which was home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans were singled out and relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and half years, many of the Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards. (CITE
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