On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese attack planes bombed Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Hawaii. Later that day, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the order to enter WWII. Seventy-four days later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066. This executive order gave the US Army the power to force people in designated areas in the US to relocate. Although Executive Order No. 9066 did not specify a particular group of persons, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans from California, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington were incarcerated and relocated to internment camps for up to four years. These Japanese-Americans lost some 6-7 billion dollars (in 2018 values) in homes, businesses, and other property. Between 1942 to 1946, Japanese-Americans were distributed to ten different internment camps across the country with little resistance. However, after claiming that their constitutional rights were violated, all Japanese-American internees were released in 1946. The 120,000 internees were given reparations over forty years in 1988 when the Civil Liberties Act gave up to $20,000 to each internee. During WWII, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans were marginalized when they were unjustly incarcerated and forced into internment camps. However, hundreds of internees resisted the military draft, and after forty years of court trials, almost all Japanese-Americans affected by Executive Order 9066 were reimbursed for their hardships.
The first Japanese-Americans moved to America to work on railroads in the Pacific Northwest, which led to Anti-Japanese prejudices. According to a project by Leslie Wykoff, a director at Washington State University Vancouver, the first Japanese-Americans immigrated to the Pacific Northwest in the 1880’s, shortly after the signing of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese immigrants left Japan for America in search for job opportunities. When they arrived, many Japanese immigrants were employed to help construct the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Oregon Short Line, and other railroads in the Pacific Northwest. Leslie Wykoff states “by 1907, the Japanese comprised about forty percent of Oregon’s total railroad force” (Wykoff). The Japanese made up such a high percentage of the Oregon railroad force since they were underpaid, making it more effective to hire several Japanese immigrants than one American. While Japanese immigrants comprising a large part of the railroad force, they made up an extremely small percentage of the US population. Despite their inferior group size, American natives had begun creating anti-Japanese groups, claiming that Japanese immigrants were enemies of the American workforce because they “stole” their work.These anti-Japanese organizations and campaigns recycled “many of the same slanders as had been used against Chinese immigrants in the decades before” (Wykoff). With anti-Asian groups becoming more and more prominent, the Japanese and American governments came to a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” in 1908. This agreement cause Japan to limit the number of immigrants leave for the US, while the US allowed children and wives of Japanese immigrants already in America to move to the US. However, this agreement only lasted up to WWII, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Following the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941, the American government violated the rights of Japanese-Americans with Executive Order 9066. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, “empowering the U.S. Army to designate areas from which ‘any or all persons may be excluded’” (Lord, et al). The Executive Order, without context, might sound more like a relief measure, “but future attorney general and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, explained to the press that it was aimed chiefly at Japanese, who would be moved away from the West Coast” (Daniels). Despite applying the Executive Order to solely Japanese, “the executive order specified no particular group of persons… The War Department [could] have applied it to enemy aliens and perhaps others anywhere in the United States” (Lord, et al). The US Government rashly chose to believe that all Japanese persons were spies for Japan, hence why only Japanese-Americans were incarcerated. Despite allegations, “no person of Japanese ancestry living in the United States was ever convicted of any serious act of espionage or sabotage during [WWII]” (Daniels). While no Japanese-Americans were ever found guilty, at least ten Caucasians were convicted of espionage, or spying, in court. Executive Order 9066 led to the mass incarceration and relocation of over 120,000 Japanese-Americans across the west coast. Some of these 120,00 internees were held in relocation centers for up to forty-seven months.
The Japanese-Americans were treated poorly and unjustly in relocation centers, better known as internment camps. There was a total of ten relocation centers dispersed across the US, but the most controversial internment camp was located at Tule Lake. The Tule Lake Relocation build on ancient volcanic ground in California. The camp was redesigned as a “maximum-security prison camp for those labeled as ‘disloyal’ to the government because they did not answer ‘yes’ on questionnaires asking if they would swear their allegiance to the US” (Weik). The camp was able to hold 18,000 internees “and resulted in dislocations of family, friends, and communities incarcerated at Tule Lake and other concentration camps” (“Tule Lake”). The cruel presence of Tule Lake scared Japanese internees and unjustly separated “disloyal” citizens from their families, violating their rights. Another of the ten relocation camps was located nearby in Tanforan. Miné Okubo was thirty years old when she and her brother were forced into the Tanforan internment camp. As the Okubos started to adjust to life as internees, they were transferred to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah, where Miné documented her time as an internee. Once set free from internment, Miné published her book Citizen 13660. In this book, Miné explains how the Topaz Project treated internees. At the Topaz center, the Okubos were treated well, in relation to other camps. Miné and her brother were assigned to Block 7, Barrack II, Room F, a rectangular room of only 200 square feet. Miné later explains that “each mess hall fed from two hundred and fifty to three hundred persons. Food was rationed, as it was for the civilian population on the outside [of the camp]” (Okubo). The ten relocation centers of Japanese-American internment were not the same. Some were maximum security prisons, while others seemed to resemble college dorms. Despite the differences, all internment camps held 120,000 Japanese-Americans against their will, as they violated their rights to freedom.
The backbone of Japanese-American internment was undoubtedly the mass hysteria caused by propaganda and racial prejudices. Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese prejudices began to reemerge and spread vastly. In a book by Richard Lord and others, it is stated that white working men began to consider the Chinese, who in 1870 comprised about 10 percent of California’s population, as competitors” (Lord, et al). The competitive and unhappy American workforce spawned many anti-Chinese prejudices, that ultimately led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Shortly after the signing of the act, Japanese immigrants began flowing into America to work on railroads in the Pacific Northwest as “replacements” for cheap Chinese laborers. As racial tension and anti-Asian prejudices were still present, the new Japanese-Americans were under attack by racist Americans. Eventually, these prejudices subsided but were quickly revived after the attack of Pearl Harbor. After the US joined WWII, many Americans started to become paranoid about Japanese spies. These Americans chose to believe that all Japanese-Americans were a threat and a menace to their country and safety. With their recent concern, new anti-Japanese propaganda was designed as a result of “public hysteria grounded in racism and false reports of sabotage” (Recchiuti). One of the most famous pieces of propaganda is a poster called “This is the Enemy,” which portrays an animal like Japanese soldier attacking a white woman. In this poster, fear tactics are heavily relied on to scare the American public into hatred against Japan. The poster has a large, menacing monkey-like creature wearing a Japanese military uniform. This creature looms over a small, innocent American woman, who seems to be shrieking in fear. The bold lines and dark colors combined with “the stark white of the teeth and eyes on both faces highlights their extremely emotional expressions: one of anger and menace on the Japanese soldier, and one of utter fear and terror on the woman” (Miles). Japanese-Americans became accustomed to this racial discrimination, which became apparent after the signing of Executive Order 9066. Despite having their constitutional rights violated, Japanese-Americans their homes for relocation centers with very little resistance.
Although Japanese-Americans showed minimal resistance during the beginning of the mass incarceration, many refused to be drafted into the military, which ultimately caused no positive immediate effects. An article by reporter Annie Nakao states “Japanese Americans… protested the loss of their constitutional rights in World War II by refusing to fight for their country until the government freed them and their families from wartime internment camps” (“Japanese Americans’ Internment Resistance Noted in Documentaries”). These draft resisters were sent to Tule Lake as a punishment for their lack of American loyalty. In another article by Nakao, she interviews Frank Emi, 85, of San Gabriel, who led draft resisters in the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. When asked why he resisted the draft, Emi stated, “’when they forced us out of our homes, we went quietly… When we got put in the camps, we went quietly. But when they wanted to draft us, as if we were free citizens, that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back. At that point, we felt we had to say, “That’s enough”’” (Emi, “A Unique Tale of WWII Resistance / Japanese American Internees Refused Draft”). The draft resisters hoped that refusing to fight for the country that incarcerated them would lead to their freedom. However, it put over 6,000 draft resisters in jail, who “were pardoned in 1947 – but all of them faced years of enmity from the JACL and many nisei veterans” (“A Unique Tale of WWII Resistance / Japanese American Internees Refused Draft”). Draft resisters pushed for their freedom, but ultimately lost the sliver of freedom they had. Although resisting the draft had no positive immediate effects, it led to several court cases that compensated the internees for their violation of rights.
After years of unjust rulings, Japanese-American internees were reimbursed for the violation of their constitutional rights following numerous Supreme Court hearings and reconsiderations. “With no political friends and the full force of the federal government upon them, Japanese Americans,” (“A Unique Tale of WWII Resistance / Japanese American Internees Refused Draft”) were forced to cooperate with the US Government, and relocate. In 1944, Fred Korematsu claimed that Executive Order 9066 was unconstitutional. Despite his efforts, a “6-3 decision in Korematsu v. United States the Supreme Court ruled that interning Japanese Americans during the war for purposes of “military necessity” was constitutional” (Recchiuti). Eventually, in 1988, the US Government passed Civil Liberties Act, which declared Japanese internment “unconstitutional,” and provided $20,000 to every living internee as compensation. Deeming Japanese internment as “unconstitutional” was a victory for all Japanese-Americans. Following the Civil Liberties Act, in 1998, US President Bill Clinton “bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on Fred Korematsu” (Recchiuti). Japanese Internees had finally won the fight against the constitution and officially claimed their rights back from the United States. With minimal short term effects and plenty of long term victories, draft and court resistance ultimately made Japanese-Americans the victors of internment.
Similarly to Japanese-American internment, during WWII Hitler incarcerated and killed millions of Jews in concentration camps, committing the largest genocide in history. While Japanese-Americans used passive resistance during internment, many Jews were very radical during the Holocaust. These radical efforts led to immediate effects, rather than long term effects, like the ones following Japanese-American internment. During the Holocaust, many incarcerated Jews tried to rebel inside concentration camps, with no success. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “The Germans and their auxiliaries killed most of the rebels, either during the uprising or later, after hunting down those who escaped” (“Jewish Resistance”). In addition, Jewish rebels outside of concentration camps displayed their disgust for Germany through ghetto uprisings. These uprisings “organized armed resistance… the most forceful form of Jewish opposition to Nazi policies in German-occupied Europe. Jewish civilians offered armed resistance in over 100 ghettos in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union” (“Jewish Resistance”). However, violence was not the only way Jews rebelled against Hitler. Jewish authorities in Palestine “sent clandestine parachutists such as Hannah Szenes into Hungary and Slovakia in 1944 to give whatever help they could to Jews in hiding” (“Jewish Resistance”). It is evident that Japanese internees and Jewish rebels had very different modes of resistance. However, both Japanese internees and Jewish rebels each group wanted one thing: freedom.
During WWII, Japanese-Americans were unjustly forced out of their homes and imprisoned in internment camps, violating their constitutional rights. After resisting the military draft and many unsuccessful court trials, Japanese-Americans won back their rights, and were compensated for their unfair treatment. Following years of effort from Japanese-Americans, they finally won a long lasting, metaphorical war with the US. The Civil Liberties Act deemed internment unconstitutional, and “made the ten internment sites historical landmarks, asserting that they ‘will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency’” (Recchiuti). Japanese internment during WWII should be seen as a very poor example of American rights. Japanese-Americans had their constitutional right of freedom completely violated and ignored. The ten relocation centers stand to remind the US of a dark time where they ignored the American way of freedom. Studying Japanese internment should prevent future generations from allowing history to repeat itself. Hopefully, Americans can become more open to other races, and connect with the world.