Information About the World War 2 and Japanese Internees' Camps

Hanzhi Zheng
Gary Olson
ENGL201
11/29/2017
Japanese Internees' Lives in Camps
The Second World War was a devastating experience for the people of not only Japanese, but also the Americans. After the Japanese dropped bombs at Pearl Harbor, the relationship between the U.S. and Japan became serious and tense. The case of Japanese-Americans was even worse since they were always treated with suspicion of being moles, who were leaking information to the Japanese enemy. Whether it was true or not, the signing of a bill by the then president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, started the tragedy of Japanese-Americans. The bill legalized the internment of the Japanese-Americans and set the U.S. towards uncharted situation as far as human rights was concerned. These camps contained Japanese-Americans who, by good reasons or just sheer suspicion, were considered as enemies of the state. From the initial perspective of the U.S. government, the camps created to control “terrorism” in the country. Japanese-Americans, who were under suspicion, were separated from the rest of the society and taken to the camps. The relocation centers were built after the Japan’s attack so that as expected, the living conditions in the camps were not satisfactory, which negatively impacted Japanese internees. The impacts changed the Japanese-Americans lives considerably and also made the Japanese-American population lose faith in the American government (Tunnel). This paper will focus on discussion of the origin of the camps and following experiences of the Japanese internees’ lives in the camps.
Background information about the World War II
The U.S was not part of the World War II until the Japanese attacked the U.S naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. At the time of the attack, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry lived in the major U.S. cities such as Washington, California, and Oregon. A large percentage of this population was American citizens by birth or by law (Burton et al.). The West Coast was where this community built its society. With harmony, the Japanese-Americans in the U.S. were definitely well assimilated into the American way of life. However, things changed quickly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The U.S government officials saw the Japanese-Americans as a threat mainly to the West Coast, and therefore, a protective measure had to be put in place. According to John DeWitt, the Army general in command of the coast, all the Japanese-Americans population was a threat, whether innocent or not (Frail). To protect the West Coast, the Japanese had to be relocated to other places.
Two months after the attack by the Japanese, February 1941, the U.S president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an Executive Order 9066 strengthening John DeWitt’s idea. The idea was to evacuate all Japanese-Americans from the West Coast (Frail). To implement the Executive Order 9066, ten internment camps were established in Idaho, California, Wyoming, Arkansas, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. The camps interned the approximated 120,000 population of the Japanese-Americans living in the U.S. By then, the internment of the Japanese-Americans had begun.
Living conditions in the camps
The relocation was done rashly without proper planning and oversight (Museus 38). The Japanese-Americans were never given time to plan on how to evacuate. Lacking time to prepare their lives for evacuation brought a lot of challenges to them in the camps. The camps were hurriedly built without considering the living conditions of a human being, and also, the camps consisted of tar paper roofed barracks, which had extensive cracks. Through the cracks, insects, dust, wind, and rain could reach the internees (Burgan 58); this made life in those camps unbearable for the internees.
The sides of the barracks were made of pine wood and covered with tar paper without any insulation. During July, the intense heat separated the pine exposing cracks on the walls and the floors. Through these cracks, cold wind at night and heat during the day would blow into the camps, which made the internees suffer from the fluctuation of temperature conditions (Burgan 58). In the camps, a large population had to stay together in one building that did not have enough toilets and showers, and therefore people had to share (Burgan 59). There was no privacy in the sharing since the population was large and each person could not have a specific time to use them and there was no waiting time. What is more, there were guards everywhere to monitor the internees’ behaviors all day long, which has violated their freedom of movements. For example, there were watch towers throughout the camps while the F.B.I was constantly surveying the area. Besides, the camps were fenced with barbed wires (Museus 39).
Internees Social Activities in the Camps
Since the lives in camps were dreadful and lonely, the internees tried to overcome their adversity. Through their advisory council, they managed to construct and establish temples, churches, girls and b...