The Beginning of The Japanese Internment

January 10,1942  around the time world war two began( December 7, 1941) This happen because the Japanese bombed pearl harbor and since this happened Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order 9066.They captured 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage. All this was going on during World War II and the main reason for this was the Pearl Harbor situation.  “With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the government found a solution to the Japanese Problem (WWW.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment)...” According to www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp, over 127,000 Japanese Americans were interned for being of Japanese ancestry. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many hateful things were being said about the Japanese which is just horrible.” Henry McLemore, a Hearst syndicated columnist, wrote on January 29, 1942 ‘I am for the immediate of all Japanese on the West Coast… Personally, I hate the Japanese.’(“Historic Perspectives” page 3, paragraph 2).” Comments like this made paranoia and hatred grow even more which led to the “relocation” of Japanese Americans. The Japanese were interned due to an unfair statement about all of them being a threat. With World War II as the setting, the internment was a part of the harsh times World War II brought. The internment was just made up of crazy thoughts that were going through people’s minds. The unfair part is that the Japanese Americans ended up being a part of a problem that they had nothing to do with. With people being in the camps, their lives changed. Their lives changed when executive order 9066 was signed. When that order was signed, the relocation and evacuations were put into place.

With the war going on the United States decided to stay out of it, but when they stopped selling war items to the Japanese, the Japanese got upset. So they decided to attack Pearl Harbor which was like a military base. After the attack, many began to think that other people with Japanese background were enemies too. There was an “Anti-Japanese Paranoia” that was going around and increasing due to the large population of Japanese Americans on the West Coast (www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp). Due to the paranoia going around like an epidemic, over 120,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to camps across the West Coast. The military was authorized to evacuate the Japanese from their homes to send them to camps because of the order 9066 (“Remembering Manzanar” Michael L. Cooper).They had to give up their homes, and other belongings so that they would be sent to the camps. After years of having harsh times to having ordinary lives, they ended up back in more harsh times. There was so much going on that it seemed like no one deserved it, but it ended up being the Japanese who had tough lives in camps (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment).
     



Pearl Harbor

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This is how Pearl Harbor looked liked when it was attacked. This attack was the start of the paranoia that helped create the Japanese Internment during World War II. With the internment beginning, it was the start of a dark time for Japanese Americans because they were taken from the lives they loved so much.

The Japanese were just said to be threats which they weren't and with all the madness the internment was decided. With the executive order 9066, the military was able to evacuate and "relocate" the Japanese which was cruel because they did nothing wrong. They were all just put into camps that were scattered across the country just because there were thoughts about them being loyal to Japan even if they had never been there. That was mainly the reason why the internment was decided and why the Japanese were treated in such ways. President Franklin D Roosevelt was pressured into signing executive order 9066 which means that is how the evacuations were put into place.  With the crazy ideas about the Japanese being threats who are still loyal to their country, and the cruel things being said, that is how this horrible chapter in their lives began.
Also, 2/3 of the internees were American citizens and half were children.