Israel Wang
H. American History
Mr. Gillespie
Period 5
2/21/18
Make America Great’.Again
Year after year people rally behind their presidential candidate, a candidate who promises to ‘make America great again’, a saying that continues to inspire the American people. Reagan used it as his slogan in 1980, and Clinton used it [in his speeches] in ’92; most recently Trump used it to unify to the republican people for his 2016 presidential campaign. This single phrase carries so much weight and meaning, but was America ever ‘great’ to begin with? America has shown. America’s xenophobic policies violated its citizens’ rights during the Japanese internment camps, and must be prevented before happening again with the Muslims.
One of America’s infamous moments of intense xenophobia occured in the 1940s with one of America's most beloved and revered presidents. Though he led us through World War 2, Franklin Delano Roosevelt also suffered from the the same xenophobic pressures everyone else at the time did. After the the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, anti-Japanese sentiment permeated throughout America. FDR tasked journalist and friend John Franklin Carter with observing and reporting on the Japanese-American communities (Atomic). In his memo report back to the president he wrote:
‘There is no Japanese ‘problem’ on the coast. There will be no armed uprising of the Japanese’ For the most part the local Japanese are loyal to the United States or, at worst, hope that by remaining quiet they can avoid concentration camps or irresponsible mobs’ your reporter’. is horrified to note the dams, bridges, power stations etc. are wholly unguarded everywhere. The harbor of San Pedro could be razed by fire completely by four men with hand grenades and a little study in one night. Dams could be blown and half of lower California could actually die of thirst” (Carter)
Carter clearly says the Japanese are no threat to America and that they should rather focus on guarding important facilities; however, both Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, and Secretary of Navy, Frank Knox pressured FDR into introducing a Japanese removal policy (Atomic). Ignoring the truth of the matter and the US Constitution and instead acting on fear, on February 19, 1942, Roosevelt issued executive order 9066, authorizing the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Not even Japanese World War I veterans could escape internment. Evidently fear of the Japanese clouded America’s judgement and led to a xenophobic policy that violated its citizens’ rights.
The feelings of intense xenophobia were exacerbated by the increased fear of dictatorships and communism. At the time, many dictators were coming to power including Hitler, and Mussolini, and with these dictatorships came the fear of communism and socialism, which were misdirected toward the Japanese. Japan was never a dictatorship and was never communist, but in large the xenophobic feelings in the United States were directed toward the Japanese-Americans, and as a result, the Japanese faced unconstitutional, unfair and discriminatory treatment such as the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans. This was completely unfair: why were the Japanese interned when the xenophobia was caused by dictatorships in Germany and Italy? Why weren’t the German Americans and the Italian Americans interned as well? Because the Japanese were an easy target, there weren’t as many and there was already much anti-Japanese sentiment due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The truth of the situation however was that the Japanese Americans posed no greater threat than their fellow German Americans or Italian Americans. By 1942, around the same time the relocation camps for the Japanese were constructed, Roosevelt gave a speech removing the ‘enemy alien’ stigma from the Italian Americans, at a time when Italy was a dictatorship and Japan was not (Smithsonian). The treatment of Japanese Americans was clearly irrational as the Italian Americans and German Americans posed no greater threat than the Japanese, however the because of the fear dispersed throughout America, the Japanese suffered unjust, inequitable, and discriminatory treatment.
Lately in the 21st century, xenophobic phenomenon of islamophobia has permeated throughout America. People are becoming increasingly blinded by their fear of Muslims and letting that fear cover the truth, that there is no evidence to support the fear of Muslims. On average about 50% of US adults believe that Islam encourages violence and that there is a great deal of extremism among U.S. Muslims, however in predominantly Muslim countries such as Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, an overwhelming majority of the population (100%, 97%, and 94% respectively) do not share the same beliefs and opinions of radical militant islamic groups such as ISIS (Lipka). With Islam holding the position as the second largest religion in the world and (by far) the fastest growing, anti-Muslim hate crimes are also growing with a 67% increase from 2014-15 (Lipka, Uniform Crime Report). Similarly to the situation of the Japanese internment camps, people are letting their fear guide their beliefs and actions rather than the truth; this needs to be stopped before it escalates into something greater, such as unconstitutional islamophobic policies.
Furthermore the United States is faced with decision of inclusion or exclusion. Historically during the Japanese internment camps of WWII, the United States chose exclusion. The US institutionalized the discrimination against the Japanese by creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA), a government agency whose explicit purpose was to oversee the relocation of Japanese-Americans. By May of 1942, it had build 10 relocation camps. The American government euphemized the relocation camps as ‘relocation centers.’ However, ‘the newly built camps had military barracks, barbed wire, and guard towers and searchlights.’ (Atomic). These camps forced the Japanese to be isolated and excluded from society, the government chose to exclude rather include. Similar but separate from relocation camps, the Immigration and Naturalization Service agency created internment camps for the Japanese deemed as an ‘enemy alien.’ In these internment camps the Japanese would undergo hearings which resulted in being sent back to their families in the WRA’s relocation camps, or if found to be dangerous they would be sent to an Army POW Camp. (PBS). But it was more than just mere exclusion: the Japanese were treated horribly. Their entire lives were turned upside down because of America’s fear of the Japanese. About 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forced to leave their home, half of them American born children; these legal American citizens were deprived of their constitutional rights, they had no jury trial or due process of the law, they were presumed guilty without any evidence and imprisoned for 4 years (PBS). Some families were split up and conditions inside the camps were deplorable, and resistance to authority was punishable by death, around 2,000 prisoners died in these camps. Roosevelt himself even called them concentration camps (NPR). These statistics should be shocking as they go against what America stands for as a nation. Instead of including Japanese in their society, America excluded and took it to an extreme, should never be emulated in any country, ever; it was illegal and inhumane.
Following the end of World War II, the Japanese were released from the internment camps and allowed to return home. Regrettably for the survivors, there was not much to return home to, and the exclusion from society continued for generations. Because the Japanese were rushed into internment camps, being able to only take what they could carry with them, they left many of their belongings behind. Many Japanese returned to their properties having been sold and their belongings stolen, while still facing discrimination. Neighborhood signs read ‘Japs not Wanted’ and ‘Go Home Japs'(Chi, Robinson). On top of having to reassimilate back into society, the exclusion of the Japanese Americans caused prolonged stress which resulted in increased physical and mental health concerns, ‘Health studies have shown a 2 times greater incidence of heart disease and premature death among former internees compared to non interned Japanese Americans.'(PBS). Returning from the camps, the Japanese Americans had to rebuild their life, which was especially hard with all the exclusionary anti-Japanese discrimination they faced. As a result forty-three thousand Japanese ended up leaving the west coast to start a new life elsewhere in America. This exclusion is not acceptable, it is undoubtedly discriminatory, and it marginalizes an entire race within America.
Recently when regarding the current, 21st century issue of Islamophobia, America is again being faced with the decision of exclusion or inclusion. And America is once again leading to exclusion. Only a few months after president trump took office, he issued a travel ban, however this travel ban finds its roots in Islamophobia, six of the seven countries (North Korea being the odd one out) listed in the ban are islamic countries, with a majority Muslim population; the ban blocks about one hundred and fifty million Muslims from entering the country (Khatami).
In 1944 Fred Korematsu failed to report to a concentration camp, he planned to ignore executive order 9066, he let the American Civil Liberties Union take his case to court, where he argued that the government had violated his constitutional rights. He lost under the Federal Court in San Francisco, and the lost again in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Finally he appealed to the supreme court where they ruled, 6-3, that the concentration camps were a military necessity, that the need to protect the country was greater than the rights of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Later in 1983 the case was reopened when it was discovered that the government had destroyed evidence from government intelligence agencies that proved the government knew and had proof that the Japanese-Americans were not a viable threat to the safety of America. It was not until congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (The Japanese American Redress Bill) that the government recognized its wrong doings(PBS). This is perhaps the epitome of xenophobia in the United States and shows the corruption of the government to have violated the rights 120,000 citizens, and being responsible for the wrongful death of 2,000 citizens.
American inequality is one of America’s few consistencies throughout history. Measured by the gini coefficient, inequality is ranked on a scale of 0-1, 0 being perfect equality and 1 being perfect inequality. Consistently the United States has been about a 0.4. Back when the first Continental Congress met in 1774 the US was at 0.437, and recently in 2011 the US was at a 0.477(Saez)(Census). Though that may seem low, it is significantly higher than the UK and even Israel which hold steady around a 0.3, and puts the US on par with developing third world nations such as Brazil, Chile, and the Philippians (in the upper 0.4 range)(World Bank). A contributing factor to the United States unusually high gini coefficient is it’s history of xenophobia. The United States exemplifies extreme xenophobia more often than not; not many know that United States helped pioneer the modern eugenics movement, before it reached Nazi Germany. These manifestations of xenophobia occur regularly throughout American history.