Japanese Internment: Military Necessity or Racism?
Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States committed one of the most deplorable acts in its brief history. Between 110,000 and 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forced out of their homes and into internment camps heavily guarded by military officials. The government argued that these acts were militarily necessary, but a closer examination reveals that racism and discrimination played a crucial role in the detainment of Japanese-Americans. With racism already a problem in America during the War, the government perpetuated the problem by singling out those of Japanese descent and separating them from the rest of society. Not only did this destroy many traditions of the Japanese family, but it also stripped Japanese-Americans from their homes and livelihoods. In John Okada's No-No Boy, the father believed that the benefits of America outweighed the drawback of racism. I was interested to find out if this belief was warranted, or whether the government was not fulfilling its promise of opportunity to Japanese-Americans because of their heritage. The internment of Japanese-Americans was provoked by a largely racist and discriminatory American society, which led to a direct violation of American ideals.
Not only did we stop eating at home, there was no longer a home to eat in (Singh 1). This Commission worked on repaying Japanese-Americans, but so many lives were destroyed making this extremely difficult. It remains to be seen how American responds to the acts of September 11, but hopefully the experience of Japanese internment will be something we can look back on and learn from. If Japanese-American were truly a military threat, then why were those living on the West Coast targeted and those in Hawaii and along the East Coast ignored? How can a person be prosecuted and subjected to internment camps without evidence of committing a crime or violating a policy? Ferguson attempted to answer these questions by correlating Japan with Japanese-Americans and lumping them together as one enemy. Fred Korimatsu, a seventy-two year-old who resisted relocation to a camp in Utah disagreed with Ferguson: "They [Japanese and Japanese-Americans] were behind barbed wires and also the guards had submachine guns" (Frammonlino 3). It is also interesting that Japanese-Americans who resided in Hawaii were not treated as poorly as those on the mainland. It became clear years after the internment camps were eradicated that they were not justified in any sense. Unfortunately, Japanese families were torn apart and Japanese homes were left abandoned before anyone realized the atrocity that was occurring. My self-image suffered - I felt as though I had bombed Pearl Harbor" (Singh 1). About a third of the Hawaiian population was of Japanese descent when Pearl Harbor was attacked, yet only one percent of Hawaiian Japanese-Americans were detained (Sandler 271) Perhaps this was coincidence, but there is clearly reason to believe that internment was not militarily motivated. Behind the motivation of racial discrimination, Japanese-Americans were forced to leave their homes and livelihoods creating one of the most extreme violations of rights in American history and disrupting the lives of thousands of people.
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Acceptance Essays
