Dbq Japanese Internment

America holds itself as a ‘mighty force against discrimination,’ but from slavery to police brutality, challenges must be brought up to this statement. During World War II Japanese American, citizens and immigrants, were forced from their homes and businesses into concentration camps.Although conditions were horrible and cruel, these camps are quite contrasting to the Nazi’s death camps. The U.S. downplayed the event and claimed the Japanese descendents were happy to cooperate with the decision. This leads an inquisitive thinker to the question: why? The internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II was attempted to be justified as the protection of military and civilian interests, leaving out the racism and false information
provided false information. The Supreme Court issued the following statement in the case of Korematsu. “Citizenship has its responsibilities, as well as its privileges, and, in time of war, the burden is always heavier. Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direct emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when, under conditions of modern warfare, our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger” (Doc D). As for the defendant, they believed “he was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the... military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and... Because they decided that the military and urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress... determined That our military leaders should have the power to do just this” (Doc D). It is constitutional that all citizens be given rights; nowhere does it have a footnote saying “unless we are at war.” “Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and the rest decisions which followed... were not driven by analysis of military conditions... The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership” (Doc E). America was in an environment built upon fear and ego. Their choice of coping skill happened to be to project their fears onto the Japanese. However, all was not against the Japanese; “the 442nd helped counter the notion that Japanese Americans were not loyal citizens”