Japanese Americans WW 11?

Question

I have heard they were put in camps. Also, land, homes, and money were seized by the government. Any thoughts on this subject?

Answer 1

Its one of the moments of US history I don't think we can take any pride in.

We put them in camps for fear of them being secret agents for the Japanese. We thought they would make acts of sabotage or pass valuable information to the Japanese.

Not all of them were treated that way. Some actually joined the Army and fought in Europe. We sent them there since we didn't want there to be any confusion or chance they would switch sides (we sent German immigrants, like my grandfather to the Pacific for the same reason).

Answer 2

Not all Japanese were herded into internment camps. Japanese immigrants, and those who were 2nd and 3rd generation American in the western US were targeted for this treatment. It's one of the shames of the U.S.

Camps were throughout California and even as far west as Colorado and Wyoming. People were allowed to do quite a bit in the camps. People wore their own clothing and re-formed clubs, schools, and recreational activities.

A wonderful 1st account is the book Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment. You can read what happened and how people coped with this.

In Colorado, the Governor at that time, Ralph Carr, encouraged Colorado citizens to welcome the Japanese and even made land grants to former members of the internment camps. It cost Carr his political career, but his legacy is one that stands out as being right.

Those who lost everything by being interned, were compensated by the Federal Government in the 1990's with an apology.

At the time, there was a lot of racial hatred and fear of Japanese. Their military was much larger than ours at the beginning of the war despite the small size of the country. The fact that these people were not of European decent and were visibly different from Europeans placed these people into many eyes as suspect.

The dignity in which most endured this process, and maintained their ardent patriotism to the US is still impressive. Many sons & daughters left their parents in the camps to fight the war, and put their own lives at risk. It makes a statement about the identity that Americans have regardless of their ancestry, race or religion.

I hope you read the book. It's written by a woman who experienced the camps as a young girl. I was captivated by it in high school.

good question

Answer 3

This has been batted back and forth for years. Was it right? Nope. Most certainly not. Know why this was done? Because we believed the Japanese were sneaky and untrustworthy. Plus they were yellow skinned and had almond shaped eyes.

Now...despite this being horribly politically incorrect think about this. People of German origin weren't locked up in detention camps nor was their property seized. Know why? Because they looked like Americans. We are of European descent and lets face it...people were furious that the Japanese would do something so sneaky, so dastardly as to attack us with no warning.
It boils down to people not understanding the culture of others. Not that the Japanese are a 'sneaky' culture but that connotation or stigma was pinned on them immediately after December 7, 1941. Take a look at the WW2 propaganda cartoons. The Japanese were always portrayed as having coke bottle glasses, buck teeth, an evil grin pasted on their faces and bow-legged. They were referred to as "Japs", "Nips" and even worse..."Monkeys". The Germans? All typical European features..maybe an exaggerated feature like a large nose but never portrayed in such a manner. And we called the Germans what? "Krauts" or "Jerries". No where near as derogatory as "Monkeys".

You also have to realize that the very thought of hordes of japanese soldiers running enmasse into fortified positions, only to be mowed down or slamming planes into ships was beyond the comprehension of most Americans and Brits. Suicide? For your god/Emperor? Are you kidding? These people are savages. Or so we thought. All because we failed to understand the Japanese culture of the time.

In addition, the Germans slaughtering the Poles may have been horrific to us and there was literally few if any reported incidents of Nazis murdering Jews wholesale. But there was extensive coverage of the Japanese slaughtering Chinese in all the newsreels and papers. They were considered 'barbarians' by occidental standards. Even the Germans were taken aback. Maybe not the hard core Nazi party members but the German people were just as shocked as us although their news coverage was considerably more censored. Although we saw to it that news coverage was limited as well to suit the purposes of morale.

So....reparations would have been in order. I am in agreement with that. But...think about this. People had said (referring to Hitler and the extermination of the Jews) "Oh...that would never happen here". Yeah....well...relocation camps...concentration camps. The only difference was the Japanese were not systematically murdered to accomplish a goal of genocide. But it's a start isn't it? If Roosevelt had instituted a system to do the same I don't believe that it really would have had many people arguing against it.

Its amazing how the masses can be manipulated. We as Americans are no different than most anyone else. Its just that we've been lucky not to fall into that trap. But if you knew that your standing up in the town square on a soapbox and saying "The goverment is methodically killing Japanese-American citizens and its morally wrong" would bring the FBI to your door in the middle of the night and you'd be whisked away...forever...would you take a stand?

Answer 4

it was rascism on America's part because German Americans were not similarly interned, thankfully today, America has moved in such a direction that human rights are engrained and similar things are not happening to American Arabs....well not on mainland USA at any rate ; )

Answer 5

If you think what happened to them in the US was bad, you should research what happened to Japanese-Canadians.. it was HORRIBLE!

Answer 6

hey snoot, i hadnt heard anything about this-sorry i cant give you no answer