Effects Of Japanese Internment

On September 1st, 1939, the second World War was officially declared. This war would last for 6 years, killing roughly 3% of the overall populace, approximately 2.3 billion people. World War II claimed millions of lives for racism alone, and decimated the rights of different ethnicities with the claims that one race was superior. Germany was not the only racist country, with North America particularly subject to racial acts of injustice. One of them was the Japanese internment camps created in 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The 'relocation centers' were the most hypocritical act of WWII, a war fought because of prejudice and racism. These camps denied the Japanese rights and freedoms of other citizens of non-Japanese descent, and
the racism against the Japanese mirrored that of the Jewish at the time.
On December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, claiming the lives of 2,500 people and wounding 1000 more. Racism in America and Canada surfaced in those times, eventually passing a law calling for the removal of all persons of Japanese descent. Citizens of America and Canada were jailed, had their property taken, and some were even deported. Though these were innocent people, over 21,000 Japanese Canadians were uprooted during the war. "I was a 22-year-old Japanese Canadian, a prisoner of my own country of birth. We were confined inside the high wire fence of Hastings Park just like caged animals." Tom Tamagi reports of the relocation centers. (Marsh, Historica Canada) A census taken in 1940 noted there was 127,000 American citizens of Japanese descent; once the relocation centers were enforced, the ten camps in America held up to 120,000 Japanese. (Japanese-American Relocation, History.com) The states of these camps were horrible as well. "According to a 1943 report published by the War Relocation Authority (the administering agency), Japanese Americans were housed in 'tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.' Coal was hard to come by, and internees slept under as many blankets as they were allotted. Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per internee, and served by fellow internees in a mess hall of 250-300 people." (Siasco & Ross, Infoplease)
The Japanese Internment camps were perhaps the most hypocritical act in the war.
Not only was WWII fought against racism, but North America is a continent mainly comprised of immigrants of European descent, and some of the racism towards the Japanese was rationalized because they were immigrants. By the end of WWII, Mackenzie King gave the Japanese an ultimatum in Canada; go to Japan or east of the rocky mountains. Therefore when America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of the dead might have been American and Canadian citizens, which would be ironic considering racism against the Japanese escalated because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Government officials were not sympathetic at the time. “Take them back to Japan. They do not belong here, and here, and there is only one solution to the problem. They cannot be assimilated as Canadians for no matter how long the Japanese remain in Canada they will always be Japanese.” Thomas Reid, Member of Parliament for New Westminster said on the matter. (Quotes, Canadian Japanese Internment Camps) "And at school, we began every school day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I could see the barb wire fence and the sentry towers right outside my schoolhouse window as I recited the words 'with liberty and justice for all,' an innocent child unaware of the irony." George Takei stated of the hypocrisy of the camps. (Dvorsky, Gizmodo) Final control over the Japanese was not fully lifted until 1949, years after the official end of
the war. Yet, official apologies of the governments of North America were not issued until 1988, with reparation payments averaging to $21,000 to each internee. (Creating Canada: A History – 1914 to the Present, pp 256-257) This is particularly interesting because Germany was made to pay back the Jewish people after the injustice they caused them immediately, whereas North America waited 39 years to release a formal apology.
The states of Japanese internment camps reflected the Jewish at the time in certain ways.
The camp conditions were bad, and often over-crowded. Though the Japanese Americans and Canadians had done nothing wrong, they were persecuted because of their ethnicities and the way they looked, much like the Jewish people in Germany. Japanese Americans were transported to the internment camps via railroad cars with armed soldiers as escorts. The camps were surrounded with barbed wire and sentry towers. These were rather violent shows of power for people who had done nothing wrong. "We saw all these people behind the fence, looking out, hanging onto the wire, and looking out because they were anxious to know who was coming in. But I will never forget the shocking feeling that human beings were behind this fence like animals [crying]. And we were going to also lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves… cooped up there… when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free." Mary Tsukamoto says of her arrival to an internment camp. (Our Story, Daily Life in the Internment Camps) Mary Tsukamoto touches on her first experience of an internment camp, and the experience sounds like it might as well have been based in the Jewish concentration camps. In fact, the way the Japanese were treated could've been based on the early ways of the National Socialism Party. "BC politicians were in a rage, speaking of the
Japanese 'in the way that the Nazis would have spoken about Jewish Germans.'" Escott Reid reports. (Marsh, Historica Canada) Even after the release of the Japanese in camps, many Japanese descendants had no place to go because the government stole their land and money their land and money from them. Only other Asians would hire them, and the racism towards Japanese was extremely present then. It is still present, even to this day.
In conclusion, the Japanese relocation centers were the largest form of hypocrisy throughout the entire war. Though the war was fought to end racism, these camps under government control only enforced the idea that racism is never ending, no matter how ironic it is. Japanese internment camps were created because Pearl Harbor was bombed, and suddenly the entire Japanese race were villains. However, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed beyond recognition, America was the hero for winning WWII. The Germans were horrible people for imprisoning and murdering the Jews, though when North America does it against the Japanese, albeit in a much milder way, it was fine.