Japanese Concentration Camps
It
seems to me that President Roosevelt learned a little from Nazi Germany, when
he too, decided to isolate Japanese American’s (majority all legal aliens or citizens)
into concentration camps during WWII. President Roosevelt is often remembered
for being a compassionate loving president, in fact it is said that stuffed
teddy bears are nicknamed after him (teddy). However, President Roosevelt
issued an Executive Order 9066, the day after the Pearl Harbor attacks. This
order forced 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps, half
of which were children (pbs)! The fear was that these families could have been Japanese
spies. However, even after the people in charge learned that not even one of
the families were guilty of espionage they were still kept in the camps.
My
question is what was the real reasoning for the concentration camps? Was this
some sick way of trying to get back at Japan, by making Japanese American’s suffer?
Cruelty was shown to these people who probably considered themselves loyal Americans,
and probably was devastated about the Pearl Harbor attacks as well. I don’t see
how attacking our own American Citizens, helped the cause any. It seems as
though the government and Presidents during WWII had little regard towards the Japanese
as people. The fact that President Roosevelt did this to innocent Japanese
Americans, who were considered our own, comes as no surprise that they sent a nuclear
bomb to destroy innocent Japanese. It seems as though racism played a factor in
WWII. Just as whites lynched African Americans in the south to keep them in
their place, the government (primarily if not all white at that time) sent nuclear
bombs to keep the Japanese in theirs. Without
this dehumanizing of the Japanese, would Americans have initially agreed so
heavily with President Truman dropping the nuclear bombs?
