5 paragraph essay on japanese internment
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans were suspicious of first-generation Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans and accused them of espionage. This suspicion is reflected in one of the most well-known war propaganda films, Know Your Enemy—Japan Smith Goes to Washington , directed it. However, these nuances are lost by the end of the film.
World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans
The day after the early-morning surprise assault on Pearl Harbor, on Dec. Over the next few months, almost , people of Japanese ancestry, over 60 percent of whom were American citizens, were removed from their homes, businesses and farms on the West Coast and forced to live in internment camps. The United States government feared that these individuals, simply because of their ethnicity, posed a national security threat. More than 40 years later, Congress passed legislation mandating apologies and reparations for violations of the civil liberties and the constitutional rights of those incarcerated during the war.
In this lesson, students use original Times reporting and other resources to investigate the forced internment of Japanese-Americans — and track how the government has gradually apologized for some of its actions over the decades. Primary sources: newspaper articles and editorials. Background: Over time, almost , Japanese-Americans, regardless of whether they were immigrants or had been born in the United States, were evacuated from their homes and brought to temporary assembly centers before being confined to one of several remote internment camps.
Activity: Working in small groups, students should read one or more of these New York Times articles from the time period. Their goal? To figure out what they can find in s news coverage that explains why the American government forced people from their homes into internment camps simply because of their ethnicity, and why the rest of the country let it happen.
Does it include any Japanese-American voices? Sourcing: Only government sources including the Los Angeles mayor, the California attorney general and an Army lieutenant general were provided. Students can also compare reporting in The Times with accounts and editorials in newspapers on the West Coast, where most Japanese-Americans lived and anti-Japanese hysteria was particularly acute.
Is there a noticeable difference in tone? Articles in The San Francisco News scroll down to find dozens of articles from the spring of Excerpts from Los Angeles Times editorials contained within a recent editorial. Background: Dorothea Lange, a photographer best known from her photographs of migrant farmers during the Great Depression, also documented the internment of Japanese-Americans. Maurice Berger wrote in Lens :. People wait patiently in lines.
Children play. A woman makes artificial flowers. But these quiet images document something sinister: the racially motivated relocation and internment during World War II of more than , people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast, more than 60 percent of whom were American citizens. Activity: Look at images taken by Ms. Lange in this slide show at the top of this page as well as these photos.
What do they reveal about the forced evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans and about life in the camps?
Then imagine you are a museum curator with room for only five images to tell the story of internment. Which five images would you choose from the slide show? For each image, explain why. Background: Bob Fuchigami was sent to the Amache internment camp in Colorado with 10 family members when he was 12 years old.
In this video , he returns to the camp at 85 to tell the story of his imprisonment. And, in another video , Hiroshi Kashiwagi shares his memories of life at the Tule Lake internment camp. Activity: While students watch one or both of these videos, invite them to consider the following: What can you learn about what internment was like for these people and their families?
How did it affect their lives? What is the legacy of internment for them, and the nation, today? It has been the lifelong mission of many to ensure we remember the internment. Our oft-repeated plea is simple: We must understand and honor the past in order to learn from and not repeat it. But in the 75 years since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order authorizing the internment of Japanese-Americans, never have we been more anxious that this mission might fail.
It whipped up hatred and fear toward an entire group of people based solely on our ancestry. Activity: Read these Opinion pieces and consider the arguments being made. Then, write your own Op-Ed using the history of Japanese internment to argue a position on an important issue today. Research life at the camps using s reporting. Background: Newspaper reporting from the s can provide a window into what life was like at internment camps.
She wrote in a January article PDF :. Most of all the settlement looks like an oasis in an endless desert of sand, sage, mesquite and giant cacti. Around the double cluster of barracks that serve as houses, schools, workshops, mess halls, cooperative stores, offices and hospitals are nearly 17, acres of vegetable gardens, wheat, alfalfa and rice fields and pasture lands startlingly neat and green in a framework of shallow irrigation ditches. But The Times did not publish many articles detailing what life was like in the camps.
After opening each link, scroll down to view the headlines. Activity: Compare the reporting in The Times and other mainstream newspapers from to with the articles in papers published by Japanese internees.
Think about how these on-the-scene reports add to an understanding about life in the internment camps. Consider these questions:. What can we learn from reading about life at the camps in newspaper articles published from to ?
What are the ways the news stories in the camp newspapers, published by Japanese internees, differ from reporting in The Times and other mainstream newspapers? How can we evaluate the reliability of these various accounts?
Japanese-American soldiers. Background: While thousands were sent to internment camps, American-born Japanese were eventually deemed eligible to serve in World War II and thus prove their loyalty to the United States as well as provide needed troops for its war effort.
The d Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit comprised only of Japanese-Americans troops, became one of the most highly decorated regiments in U. The d suffered huge casualties; Capt. Daniel K. Inouye, now a United States senator from Hawaii, lost his right arm in battle. Yet after serving in the Army, many Japanese-American soldiers who returned to America faced discrimination. When George T. Sakato died in , he was the last to die of seven Japan-Americans who had lived to receive this honor.
Activity: Consider whether serving in the military would have been easy or hard to do when the rest of your family was kept in an internment camp. Then write a frank one-page letter home to your family as a Japanese-American soldier. Legal challenges to the camps.
Background: After Fred T. Korematsu in defied his military evacuation order, the American Civil Liberties Union branch in Northern California took up his case. But he lost his appeal and the Supreme Court ruled against him in Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui also separately defied their curfew orders and refused to report for internment, resulting in legal challenges that the Supreme Court rejected.
Irons convinced Mr. Korematsu to challenge the ruling. Karen Korematsu, Mr. In a judge overturned Mr. Korematsu the Medal of Freedom. Activity: Choose any of these court cases related to Japanese internment to research further. What is the background of the case? What were the legal issues involved? What did the court decide? What is the significance of that decision? Investigating the camps and reparations. Background: In the s Congress initiated an investigation of the internment camps.
To locate potential recipients of the reparations, the Justice Department created the Office of Redress Administration; but the process of tracking down eligible people was laborious and time-consuming , and former internees were dying. In September the Senate tried to speed up the process , yet more wrangling resulted, with the checks not to be sent until funds were made available in late in By , only 50, people had been paid.
Activity: Students should read about the conclusions of the report and discuss the following: What are the most striking points? Did Congress and the president make the right decision in issuing apologies and paying reparations? What should he be told about the role that Japanese internment camps have played in American history? Bush legislation which he signed to preserve the internment camps. Whatever your response, do research online about a camp and in your own words create a one-page summary of a tour that could be given there.
Or create a museum gallery for the historic site. Alternately, write an Op-Ed about whether more or less should be done to preserve these sites for the future. Invoking the internment example. Even though the official government attitude toward Japanese internment gradually changed, not all Americans are in agreement. Explore the following recent incidents when political leaders and activists raised the Japanese internment experience as a chapter to repeat or to avoid:.
A Times article highlighted research concluding that the Census Bureau, despite its denials, had indeed been highly involved in the roundup and internment of Japanese-Americans. Then he recanted. Restrictions on immigration by Muslims: On Dec. Trump, then a presidential candidate:. Instead, he referred to three proclamations by which Roosevelt authorized government detention of immigrants, and which led to the internment of thousands of noncitizen Japanese, Germans and Italians.
This is not an example of the work produced by our Essay Writing Service. The internment of Japanese Americans was disgraceful, and in hindsight, unnecessary. Most internees were evacuated from their West Coast homes on short notice Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated /5 on parrotsprint.co.nz Creative Essay On Japanese Internment Camps How To Write History Essays 4 ( words) Japanese government assimilation Essay Pages: 5 ( words). There are no comments for this section and you do not have permission to add.
Japanese Americans were not a threat to national security—a fact that two secret investigations commissioned by Roosevelt himself confirmed, along with the US Justice Department, the FBI, and military intelligence. At least , people of Japanese ancestry—more than two-thirds of whom were US citizens —were incarcerated in military camps based exclusively on their ethnicity, in violation of their constitutional rights. John DeWitt. The report concluded that resentment from white West Coast farmers provided part of the impetus for mass incarceration of Japanese descent. His motives were plain enough.
The day after the early-morning surprise assault on Pearl Harbor, on Dec. Over the next few months, almost , people of Japanese ancestry, over 60 percent of whom were American citizens, were removed from their homes, businesses and farms on the West Coast and forced to live in internment camps.
Famed photographer Ansel Adams traveled to Manzanar in to document the Relocation Center and the Japanese Americans interned there. This store owned by a man of Japanese ancestry is closed following evacuation orders in Oakland, California, in April of
The Incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II
Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry. Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land. Anti-Japanese paranoia increased because of a large Japanese presence on the West Coast. In the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk. Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States.
Teaching Japanese-American Internment Using Primary Resources
English Ms. Some people may. As we look down upon the Germans of that time, the U. President Roosevelt issued the Executive Order on February 19, , which allowed the relocation of tens and thousands of Japanese Americans to internment camps, stripping them of their rights; the reason being. Not only was this relocation based on false premises and shaky evidence, but it also violated the rights of Japanese-Americans through processes of institutional racism that were imposed following the events. The question that I intend to answer today is: The Constitution guarantees American citizens no imprisonment without due process of law, yet has been violated by the federal government in at least two American wars. In order to understand why this happened we have to first. Almost every Japanese American was seen as a threat to the country. Roosevelt, authorizing the relocation of Japanese Americans to camps further inland. Over , Japanese Americans were affected in some way by the order, even though more than 70, of them.
Now, with immigration-reform proposals targeting entire groups as suspect, it resonates as a painful historical lesson. The roundups began quietly within 48 hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7,
