Why Were Japanese Internment Camps Wrong

During WWII Japanese-Americans and prisoners of war were sent to camps. Two of those people that were sent to camps were Louie Zamperini and Miné Okubo. Louie Zamperini was drafted to go to war when he was young. He was on a mission to find a missing plane when his own plane crashed in the ocean. He was later captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp.

As opposed to righteous view that America was safeguarding its position in the war, the Japanese American internments were created out of resentment and racial prejudice fostered by other Americans. As the article “Personal Justice Denied” stated, the internments were led by “widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan” (Doc E, 1983). It may seem like a precautionary cause to make internments but there aren’t any other extreme measures for other fronts. Caused by a hatred stirred by media and society’s view, many people disdain the Japanese.

The Canadian Government and Society made a social and economic mistake of the Internment of Japanese Canadians and should still be embarrassed to this day. The Japanese Canadians were not allowed to defend themselves. The Japanese in Canada were considered guilty of who they were, not due to anything they have done. This created a violation of Japanese Canadian rights as Canadian citizens. The Canadian Governments Internment of Japanese Canadians was not an act of war, instead a Human Rights Violation.

The following events caused the tensions to raise between Japan and The United States of America which led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Internment of Japanese Americans. They are the Rape of Nanking and the sudden stop of U.S exports to Japan. In the 1930s Japan, had become very nationalistic, militaristic, and desired for more land to expand the population. So, Japan went to China and conquered Manchuria, Northern China, then most of China, and eventually Southeast Asia. This help Japan get out of its economic crisis but soon a very tragic and horrendous even took place.

Guards made sure that there would be no escapees by surrounding the camp with guard towers. Finally, the government exchanged human rights for the safety of the country. They forced the Japanese into internment camps for two years. The people of Japanese ancestry had their rights taken away from them in order to keep spies from giving critical information to Japan while World War II. Japan finally lost the war, allowing the internees to be set

Looking at the “alternatives” we see a variety of more simplified options. Looking at the options it seems strange that the choice of internment was made. The Law enforcement option was the Isai (Japanese immigrants to the United states) and Nisei (Japanese Americans born in the United States), secondly limit travel visas into or out of the United States, limit the geography the Isai and Nisei could go, and take away work from those who were acting questionably. Domestic exclusion zones were also put up for debate which would exclude Isai or Nisei from working on or near military bases, war manufacturing companies, and away from coast lines or boarders. Mass deportation was an option for non-citizens but due to the high expense it was not an economically feasible option at the time.

The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was not justified. After Pearl Harbor, many Americans were scared of the Japanese Americans because they could sabotage the U.S. military. To try and solve the fear President Franklin D Roosevelt told the army in Executive order 9066 to relocate all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. They were relocated to detention centers in the desert. Many of them were in the detention centers for three years.

While both camps were horrible things, they were not the same thing. Japanese Internment Camps and Nazi Concentration Camps, essentially, were not the same thing because of the reasons why they were formed, the outcome of the camps, and the effects they had on people. The Nazi Concentration Camps and Japanese Internment Camps were not the same thing because of the purpose they had behind them. First, the American government

How would you feel if one day you were told to leave your whole life behind to live in captivity just because people halfway across the world did something wrong? This horror story was all too true for the thousands of Japanese Americans alive during World War II. Almost overnight, thousands of proud Japanese Americans living on the west coast were forced to leave their homes and give up the life they knew. The United States government was not justified in the creation of Japanese internment camps because it stripped law-abiding American citizens of their rights out of unjustified fear.

The people of Japanese internment camps during World War II were falsely imprisoned and were treated poorly for no reason. No person that was forced into internment was found and charged of helping the Japanese in any way, thus making the internment camps useless. In the memoir Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes the injustice committed against the 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry who were interred by America during World War II. One of the many unjust acts the Americans forced upon the Japanese was the horrible living in internment. Many times throughout the book, Jeanne talked about the problems, such as: little to no privacy, rotten food, inexperienced chefs, crowded living arrangement, broken bathrooms, little supplies and dysfunctional hospitals.

Japanese Relocation The relocation and internment of the Japanese in America is often seen as one of our nation's greatest mistakes. For many, the quest is to now understand why we committed such an atrocious act. The most common explanations include racist attitudes, military ‘necessity’, and economic reasons. Japanese relocation was a disgracefully racist act that the Government of the U.S committed, an act that was virtually unnecessary and unjustified.

Japanese Internment Camps - Persuasive Argument On December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base located near Pearl Harbor at Honolulu, Hawaii. After the bombing, Japanese Americans were sent off to internment camps due to President Franklin Roosevelt’s decision on releasing Executive Order 9066. Even though the U.S government’s decision was meant to benefit the country’s safety from more attacks by the Japanese, my strong belief is that Executive Order 9066 was not justifiable towards Americans.

December 7th of 1941 America would face a horrific scene in their own homeland, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor with their Air Force not once but twice. That same day President John F. Kennedy would decide to place the Japanese Americans, living in the country at the time, in internment camps. The civilians would not have a clue what they would be put up against, now they would have to encounter various obstacles to make sure they would be able to survive. “The camps were prisons, with armed soldiers around the perimeters, barbed wire. and controls over every aspect of life”(Chang).

Japanese internment camps made us question who was really an American and it relates to today’s issues. Internment camps were similar to concentration camps or prison and Japanese-Americans were put into them. Even though they were considered Americans, they were still treated unfairly by other Americans. So who is American?

World War II had lots of hard work to be done, and most of it was taken out on Jewish and Japanese people. The Japanese were put into internment camps, and the Jewish people in concentration camps. Not only was it the Jewish people, but people with mental illnesses, disabilities, and people who were homosexual. Anyone who was different was put into concentration camps. Even though they are similar, concentration and internment camps aren’t the same because one was out of fear, the other hatred, ‘actions’ versus ‘reactions’, and the Japanese had opportunities, while the Jewish didn’t.