Reasearch+Notes-Liz

WWII Internment Camps Statement of Purpose

Due to the lessons learned from interning the Japanese Americans during World War II, the United States resisted imprisoning people pf Mideastern heritage after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

[]
 * Research: **

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an order called Executive Order 9066, this order was known as a "military necessity." it was to protect against sabotage and espionage. Japanese American people were evacuated in certain areas. There were about 120,000 people incarcerated.
 * -Pearl Harbor **

Half of the citizens were children most likey to be as old as 4. People were taken away from their jobs, families, homes, and friends. These people went to Remote camps,and were surrounded by guards. Most of the Japanese Americans died because of inadequate care, some were even killed for resisting orders. Japanese Internment Camps A historical fact that is not really "common knowledge" is the fact that, during World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-American individuals, the vast majority of which were actually American citizens, were rounded up and shipped eventually to internment camps. These consisted of poorly-constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire, sentry posts and armed guards.
 * -Remote Camps **

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a "threat" to national security. They were also easily identifiable due to their race. There was no similar large-scale roundups of German or Italian-Americans, even though we were also fighting them during World War II.

These people were forced to abandon their businesses, their homes and, in many cases, their families as some individuals were taken elsewhere and held, again without trial, for years. The Japanese-Americans suffered severe economic losses, personal humiliation and, in a some cases, death, due to this relocation.

The relocation itself was ordered by the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and by an act of Congress.

The Japanese-American (Nisei) and the Japanese aliens (Issei) on the West Coast were rounded up and moved to assembly centers and then to internment camps. Few Japanese living in the East or Midwestern portions of the U.S., though, were treated the same way.

What is extremely interesting is that the Nisei and Issei living in Hawaii were not subject to a mass evacuation even though they formed a third of the population in Hawaii and were a lot closer to Japan than the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of the U.S.

The reasons they weren't rounded up were both cultural and economic.

"There was no mass relocation and internment in Hawaii, where the population was one-third Japanese American. It would have been impossible to transport that many people to the mainland, and the Hawaiian economy would have collapsed without Japanese American workers. "

-from the book Japanese American Internment Camps by Gail Sakurai, 2002

"Ironically, the territory with the largest Japanese population saw the least discrimination. More than one third of all residents of Hawaii had some Japanese ancestry. Japanese labor was considered vital to the civilian and military economics of the Hawaiian Islands. Besides, the views of Delos Emmons, military commander of Hawaii, were the opposite of those of General DeWitt."

-from the book Japanese-American internment in American History, 1996.

As noted in some of the other reviews, there were a very small number of people arrested and detained in Hawaii and a small number that voluntarily went to the mainland camps, but primarily so they could find relatives. There was not a single act of sabotage in Hawaii by the Japanese Americans during the entire war.

In addition, since there were so many people of Japanese ancestry already living in Hawaii, about a third of the population, racism was not at all the kind of problem it was on the west coast.

Although prejudice and discrimination played major roles in the internment, economics and jealousy did also, as many Californians were jealous of the economic success that the Japanese-American farmers and store owners enjoyed. Thus arose a lot of the anti-Japanese-American feeling in the same way that some people despise Jewish people, largely due to their economic successes. The hard work, self-sacrifice, and strong efforts by the Japanese-Americans and Jewish people are overlooked and ignored when people of prejudice proclaim their judgments against Japanese-Americans and Jewish people.

The fact that the internment did happen here in the U.S. is something to never forget since what has happened once could very well happen again, especially in these days of growing anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner feelings in the U.S.

According to the Wartime Relocation and intermented civilians, they were motivated by wartime hysteria, radical prejudiced, and failure of Political leardership.
 * Issues: **

"The Congress recognizes that, as described in the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.
 * CIVIL LIBERTIES ACT OF 1988 **
 * Enacted by the United States Congress, August 10, 1988 **

The excluded individuals of Japanese ancestry suffered enormous damages, both material and intangible, and there were incalculable losses in education and job training, all of which resulted in significant human suffering for which appropriate compensation has not been made.

For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation."

Based on the findings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), the purposes of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 with respect to persons of Japanese ancestry included the following:

1) To acknowledge the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and internment of citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during World War II;

2) To apologize on behalf of the people of the United States for the evacuation, internment, and relocations of such citizens and permanent residing aliens;

3) To provide for a public education fund to finance efforts to inform the public about the internment so as to prevent the recurrence of any similar event;

4) To make restitution to those individuals of Japanese ancestry who were interned;

5) To make more credible and sincere any declaration of concern by the United States over violations of human rights committed by other nations.


 * 9/11 Terrorist attacks **
 * nine terrorist in the Al Qaeda group hijacked four airplanes and destroy the pentagon, **