Dbq Essay On Japanese Internment

Every war in history has at least one event that causes controversy. Vietnam was controversial because it wasn’t a declared war, WWI because of the Treaty of Versailles and WWII because of the use of the atomic bomb and Japanese internment. Two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued order 9066; the order to relocate all Japanese Americans to the west coast. The order was extended to all people of Japanese descent, and often the relocated children were second or third generation Japanese Americans. As a student in 2017 looking back upon the history of our nation, the decision made by the United States government regarding Japanese internment was unfair and unjust. The reason why order 9066 was issued was because relocating such a
After the Pearl Harbor attack, America was in a state of war. The government had to do everything in its power to insure national security, and they believed by isolating people of Japanese descent, the chances of spies roaming the country would be much less likely. Moving the Japanese into camps would “cure-all and will eliminate the danger of Japanese espionage and sabotage.” (Document 4). It was also said that FDR moved the Japanese people to internment camps to protect them. Since many believed that the attack on Pearl Harbor was the fault of the Japanese, people were willing to go to great extremes to get revenge. FDR knew that the racial prejudice was going to get out of hand, and so by moving these people to the camps, two major national problems would be solved. This idea was made clear in document 3, “The least act of sabotage might provoke angry reprisals that could easily balloon into bloody riots.” The government’s thought process was that by insuring the safety of Japanese people, as well as the safety of the nation, everybody would be