Japanese+Internment+Camps

 by Joharah, Grade 6

 On February 19, 1942, hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes and sent to internment camps. President Roosevelt took innocent people out of their ordinary lives to satisfy public outrage. This date is a one of the many dates America will remember with sorrow.media type="youtube" key="WiOSUN4EgVQ" height="315" width="420" align="left"

 Around the 1900s the Japanese population started growing in the U.S. They lived off of their farming skills. First, white people didn’t mind them, but then they felt threatened by the Japanese because they were better at farming than they were. White farmers couldn’t take this supposed competition. The government settled upon an agreement, a gentleman’s agreement and soon after a ladies’ agreement. Those agreements’ meant that people from Japan weren’t allowed to move into the U.S anymore.

Before the abduction started, President Roosevelt segregated schools and jobs. All Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were taken out of schools and put into schools only of the same race. Japanese-Americans probably felt really different from everybody else, although as said in the Declaration of Independence, “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS; AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.” Japanese-Americans were put into these camps for absolutely no reason at all, but because Pearl Harbor was damaged by Japanese people that apparently meant people of Japanese heritage had to be punished.  Internment camps were like jails for one race only- Japanese- Americans. These people were fed and taken care of, but not to the fullest potential. Their housing was a mess, it came down to the point where mushrooms were growing out of floors and you could feel the breeze in the night from cracks in the ceiling. There wasn’t much space to roam or play so one day several groups of children went sledding outside of the confined space. They were unfortunately caught and were arrested because they sneaked out of the internment camp. On another occasion, an elder was breaking a rule by standing too close to the barbed wire, and was shot dead. 

America was looked at in a different way because of this shocking event which took place: the Japanese Internment. Since Germany and Italy were also enemies in World War II, why weren’t Germans and Italians forced into internment camps?

Near the end of 1945, all Japanese-Americans were released from all internment camps. This tragedy was resolved by the end of war, but those people should not have even been in those camps in the first place. However, it was not until about 15-20 years ago that justice was served and America paid the people who suffered in those disgraceful camps. This disaster will always have a stain on America in many ways and will always be a day that lives in infamy!