Japenese-American Concentration Camps

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade December 2001

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In Larry Brimner's book, Voices from the Camp, a detailed setting of invents and dates are established in order to show what led to the internment of Japanese-Americans. His work thus paints the scenario below with provided facts and disturbing truths.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese air force on December 7, 1941, is well known. The air raid crippled the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet and killed more than 2,400 American sailors. However, another casualty of the attack on Pearl Harbor has been ignored for decades. Within hours of the bombing, a handful of Japanese Americans were taken into custody by the FBI for no other reason than their race. Ten weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that permitted a roundup of Japanese Americans. Altogether 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them being citizens, were forced out of their homes.

With total disregard for the Bill of Rights, innocent people were placed into so-called "relocation centers" better described as prison camps. Their only crime was their Japanese origin, which gives proof that Japanese concentration camps in America were unnecessary.

The roundup of Japanese-Americans first and foremost resulted in an outbreak of racism towards people of Japanese and Asian decent. One Internet source entitled "World War Two in Europe", verified that innocent people became the targets of public discrimination due to the resurfacing of anti-Japanese feelings, which were encouraged by political opportunists and the press. In the book, Voices from the Camps, Larry Brimner also comments on the hostility between the Americans and Japanese-Americans caused by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. "Harassment became widespread. It was common for businesses to mount anti-Japanese signs in their windows" (77). Thus, with tension growing, almost all Japanese-Americans were denied public services despite...