Military Necessity To Intern The Japanese example essay topic

Britton Calvert Ethnic Am. 2 pm Racism: The Question of Japanese Internment During World War Two During World War Two approximately one hundred and ten thousand Japanese, citizens and aliens, were evacuated, interned and either relocated or imprisoned in desolate camps on the basis of their loyalty to the United States. This was justified as a military necessity because the Japanese were thought to be a threat to the security of the west coast of the United States. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, age-old stereotypes that had their origin in the pioneer age of the old west were reactivated and turned against the Japanese as they had been used against the Chinese in years previous.

These exclusionist attitudes have their origin back when the white prospectors had to compete with American Indians, Mexicans and later the Chinese in order to find good land to mine. All people, especially non-whites, were considered a threat to a miner who was trying to stake a claim in the west. Then later on, when industry and the railroads made their way out west; many minorities, mostly Chinese, were discriminated against by white workers as a threat to white employment. Later on, we will see what this had to do with the Japanese exclusion during World War II. The stereotypes that labeled the Japanese as enemies and saboteurs were vastly blown out of proportion by the media at the time.

The media is directly responsible for creating the yellow peril and engendering war hysteria by way of so many biased articles. Publications that were owned by William Hearst such as the San Francisco Examiner and other Newspapers all over the west coast like The Los Angeles times and many others painted pictures of the Japanese as disloyal enemies still faithful to the Japanese emperor, who were just waiting for the chance to take out important military installations and blow up key areas of the west coast infrastructure. People who had never even set foot in Japan and may or may not have even known the Japanese language were considered to be traitors! In addition to almost all west coast newspapers, many television and film companies, especially Hearts film companies, made films depicting the Japanese army sweeping through the west coast of the U.S. and devastating the military.

Many of these films were produced before W.W. II even started. This is because the Japanese were considered a threat back when they badly defeated Russia in 1905. We can see evidence of Japans seeming military threat as far back as the late 1800's but this is no excuse to demonize Japanese Americans. Not long after the Pearl Harbor incident, the F. B I. started doing spot raids on Japanese homes and businesses looking for contraband. This could be anything from high-tech cameras used for photography to shotgun shells found in a Japanese owned sporting goods store. Anyone found with items seen as a threat to military safety, or just items connecting them with Japan, such as Japanese katana's, the typical Japanese sword, or some Japanese scrolls, flags, anything; was immediately detained and taken to the camps.

This was justified at the time as a military necessity, a euphemism for racist prejudice, and was carried out in the name of national security. The unfortunate thing about these raids were that they increased the prejudice and war hysteria that was going on at the time and elicited a reaction by the white majority that was even more hostile to the Japanese. Not long after the spot raids started, legislation was put in to effect that would gradually restrict the rights of the west coast Japanese until they were finally forced to leave the coast and be interned in the deserted wastelands of the western desert. Many people consider the internment of the Japanese as a disheartening and undemocratic thing for the U.S. government to do, but they dont consider what implications this action has for our democratic system. Martial law was never declared on the west coast yet the military had control over anyone they chose if that person was within a certain zone along the coast called the Western Defense Command. Also, The interned Japanese who were citizens of America were deprived of their rights without due process of law.

Both of these acts are violations of the constitution yet were upheld as a military necessity by the supreme court as well as supported by most west coast whites at the time. There were other minor actions that deprived the Japanese of their rights such as: the mandatory registration of all Japanese, curfews, frozen bank accounts, and the denial of U.S. entry by anyone of Japanese ancestry. In this essay, we will see that the Japanese were interned not because of their threat to the United States but because of their skin color and that the Constitution was circumvented in order to do this. Because of this blatant disregard for the Constitution, a precedent has been set which could render it useless to protect our civil rights in the future. We will also come to understand why thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent were put in to prison camps yet the other two groups of possible enemies, Germans and Italians, were practically left alone. During the early decades of the twentieth century, Japan was the most powerful country in all of Asia.

They had won a war with Russia, had never been invaded by a foreign power, and during W.W. II, had invaded China, India and numerous smaller countries as well as the U.S. controlled Philippines. This gave them the idea that they were unstoppable. It also worried many Americans as well as the U.S. military. This fear came to a head during and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Many Americans were outraged at the bombing and called for some kind of action against the Japanese. The media, and groups such as the American Legion, some politicians, and numerous labor groups who wanted the Japanese out of the work force echoed this call to action. The idea of public outcry for Japanese internment is kind of misleading. Doubtless, many, many people could have cared less if the west coast Japanese were interned, but the idea of the yellow peril was pushed by the media, and some politicians to such an extreme that most average whites were completely misled as to what the actual Japanese threat might be. Yellow peril is the term given by the media to demonize East Asians and cause them to be prejudiced against by the public. They were said to be dirty, disloyal traitors who were made sexually inappropriate advances toward white women.

The term was also used to refer to the military threat of the Japanese for invasion of the west coast. Numerous F.B.I. and military reports state how insignificant the Japanese threat of invasion was to the west coast (a hit and run attack at best) and that there was no proof of fifth column, Japanese or other foreign Americans that would sabotage west coast military installations, activities going on. In one report, Naval Intelligence officer Kenneth D. R ingle reported in 1941 that better than 90% of the Nisei and 75% of the original immigrants were completely loyal to the United States (Daniels 25) But the proof that there was no sabotage going on was turned in to a double bind for the Japanese. Some people proposed that because there was no sabotage going on, the Japanese were waiting for the perfect chance to strike at the very last moment in order to devastate the west coast before the Japanese invasion came rolling in. On February 6, 1942, the mayor of Los Angeles had this to say: Right here in our own city are those who may spring to action at an appointed time in accordance with a prearranged plan wherein each of our little Japanese friends will know his part in the event of any possible attempt invasion or air raid We cannot run the risk of another Pearl Harbor (Daniels 45). The mayor, Fletcher Boron was in accordance with Governor Olson of California who said It is known that there are Japanese residents of California who. have shown indications of preparations for fifth column activities (Daniels 42).

These remarks by people in positions of authority and respect along with the media worried the already nervous populations of California as well as other western states in to what we can call a state of war hysteria that was detrimental to the safety of the Japanese because of the rising instances of vigilantism. The violence that was now being enacted on random Japanese and Japanese looking Asians actually created a need for their internment as a precaution taken to ensure their personal safety from white attacks. But this was not a reason for their internment. They were interned because of the white populations fears of them not because of their fears of the white population. To understand why the Japanese were interned and not the Germans or Italians, we have to look at the history of the west coast. Back in the mid 1800's, Mexicans governed California, as it was a part of Mexico.

But with the influx of miners and other settlers, the white population grew and became powerful until the Mexicans were eventually driven out of California in a war called the Bear Flag Rebellion. In 1846, a republic was set under the Bear Flag. Driving this rebellion was the anti-foreign sentiment that had its origins in the genocide and / or ghettoization i.e. Reservations, of most Native American groups that the white settlers encountered as they moved west. The Chinese, who came as migrant laborers, were populating California soon after the rebellion and most of the xenophobic sentiment that was reserved for Mexicans and Native Americans was later applied to them. This prejudice, vehemently held by white labor organizations, culminated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, various anti-Oriental land laws, the 1908 Gentleman's Agreement, the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, and various other local and state exclusion practices.

As we can see, The Japanese immigrants were handicapped because the white settlers in California were notoriously hostile to Orientals (Myer 10). Racism against Asian Americans plays a significant role in the internment of the Japanese during World War Two. As we all know, mass media is a controlling force in the thought of Americans. We look to it for our news and usually dont even question the truth or validity of the issues that are presented.

The internment of the Japanese is a prime example of how the media wrongly controls and shapes public opinion whether its because someone behind the scenes wanted the Japanese out or most of the publications were run by ignorant racists. Its probably a mixture of the two but that is not the problem. The problem is that through manipulation of public thought by propagandist articles, books, speeches and films, a whole nation of immigrants were deprived of their civil rights. The propaganda being talked about here is not just the propaganda of W.W. II, but of fifty years before.

Ever since the Japanese badly defeated Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, the American public was: Conditioned not only to the probability of a Pacific war with Japan-that was after all a geopolitical fact of twentieth-century civilization-but also to the proposition that this war would involve an invasion of the continental United States in which Japanese residents and secret agents would provide the spearhead of the attack (Daniels 2, 31). The idea of west coast invasion was absorbed by Americans en masse through the medium of popular movies and books. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor a symbolic bomb was dropped on the American people. The press got involved in the propaganda campaign and started running headlines such as JAP BOAT FLASHES MESSAGES ASHORE, ENEMY PLANES SIGHTED OVER CALIFORNIA COAST, TWO JAPANESE WITH MAPS AND ALIEN LITERATURE SIZED, JAP AND CAMERA HELD IN BAY CITY, JAPANESE HERE SENT VITAL DATA TO TOKYO, CHINESE ARE ABLE TO SPOT JAP, and JAPS PLAN COAST ATTACK IN APRIL WARNS CHIEF OF KOREAN SPY BAND (Daniels 2, 33-34). Another headline describing a poll given to Californians reads By a 14 to 1 ratio, southern Californians favored deportation of all Japanese from the United Sates (Conrat 90) Headlines like these are obviously completely false and only served the purpose of creating a state of war hysteria This is where the media comes in on directly controlling the population.

By creating a state of war hysteria the media metaphorically created a nervous herd of cattle that was easily stampeded. In this case, the stampede was the internment of the Japanese and their subsequent relocation to areas outside the Western Defense Command. War hysteria has a detrimental effect on populations because it renders them confused and easily influenced. That is why the Japanese could be interned without an immediate back lash by the normal rational population. This can be seen in the Supreme Court statements about the internment issue being a necessity at the time but this will be addressed later. The media issue is one that is vastly important because of its detrimental effect on civilian populations.

The internment of the Japanese was started soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On February 19, 1942, president Theodore Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which is usually viewed as the official order causing the internment of the Japanese, but in actually is only responsible for giving military commanders the right to establish military areas that they had the right to exclude or evacuate from anyone they wished. This is when the Western Defense Command was actually set up. To get an idea of the size of the W.D.C. imagine a line splitting California, Oregon and Washington in half; the western half of those states would be the W.D.C. and would eventually be devoid of anyone of Japanese descent. Southern Arizona was also included in the W.D.C. Now the internment didnt happen all at once. It happened in a series of proclamations, each taking more rights of the Japanese away once it was put in to action.

Proclamation three was the first which directly violated the rights of most Japanese Americans (Daniels 53). It called for an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. curfew for every person of Japanese descent in the W.D.C. During the day they were restricted to their place of employment or not more than five miles of their residence. It was Civilian Exclusion Order no. 5 that forced all Japanese people in most parts of the Western Defense Command to leave their homes and go to government buildings where they were transported to relocation centers. An issue must be cleared up here though. Not all Japanese people were interned for the duration of the war.

Most of them were relocated to places in the interior of the country although they did spend a long time in the relocation camps. The Japanese who were considered subversives those who did not answer yes to the loyalty questions and those who were illegal aliens were all kept for the duration of the war. The loyalty questions were administered to all people with the potential for relocation and were: 1. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered 2. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese Emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization (Spicer 143) Those who answered no to either question were interned for the duration of the war and after their forced evacuation to relocation camps, many Japanese Americans did answer no. Why did all Japanese Americans inside the W.D.C. get interned and not the Italians or Germans Only a few of these two groups who were considered subversive or enemy aliens were interned.

Most of them however were not interned. There was a lot of controversy over this in the military but the reason is fairly simple. If the military was to intern all alien Italians and Germans they would have had to intern Joe DiMaggio's father. Now Joe DiMaggio was one of the biggest most popular sports figures at the tine and to intern his father would have created a back lash that was not felt after the internment of the Japanese.

Quite simply, the military could get away with interning the Japanese in America, not the Italians. As for the Germans, the military thought that with Germans you can tell who is bad or disloyal just by observing them; something that seems ambiguous since there are no black and white differences between loyal and disloyal. Also, The evil deeds of Hitlers Germany were the deeds of bad men; the evil deeds of Tojo and Hirohito's Japan were the deeds of bad race (Daniels 2, 34) Because Germans are white, there are some good ones, but because the Japanese are not white there are no good ones. Isnt this what the above passage is saying. There was no difference between the imperial strength of Germany and the imperial strength of Japan at the time except the color of the people.

Why were the Japanese interned Was it because of military necessity, the public outcry for their internment, the lobbying of various politicians and pressure groups, or was it prejudice This paper contends that racism caused the Japanese in America to be interned. The other more popular theories are the Military Necessity theory, the Pressure Group theory and the Politician theory. We will see that none of these theories hold true under scrutiny. The military necessity theory is probably the most widely know and most often preferred to be true.

This theory is self-explanatory. Its the theory that the Japanese were interned because they were a threat to national security. This just isnt true. Numerous reports made by military and F.B.I. officials state that the Japanese did not have the military capability to invade the west coast and there was absolutely no proof of sabotage going on anywhere. On the very day the president signed order 9066 a report made by a general staff officer stated that mass evacuation was unnecessary (Daniels 47). Numerous other reports were submitted before the day order 9066 was signed but none of them were heeded.

Why Because the people that made the decision to intern the Japanese let their racist fears control them. The second most widely held theory is the Pressure Group theory. This theory holds that influential civilian groups such as the American Legion and many labor organizations lobbied for the Japanese internment because of economic motives. It is true that pressure groups lobbied for the internment because of economic motives but in actuality, it was too little too late.

The groups were not large enough and did not have consensus with their other chapters to be big and widespread enough to influence the military. Also, many groups didnt start to lobby for internment until after the decision to intern the Japanese had already been made. This theory puts forth that there was an organized effort to lobby for internment but, there was no organized effort. It was splotchy and spread out at best. Although the pressure groups did provide a barometer for prejudiced Army officials, confirming the receptivity of the public to anti-Japanese measures (tenBroek 188). The Politician theory is the most easily discredited of them all.

It is the theory that some politicians, in order to look like leaders, picked up the cause to intern the Japanese. Many politicians did pick up the cause to intern the Japanese but just like the previous theory it was too little too late. As the lines below will show, the activities of public officials on the west coast before Feb. 14, 1942, were relatively, if not absolutely, insignificant. State, county, and city officials were not uniformly or even prominently outspoken for evacuation at a time when their views might have swayed the commanding general (tenBroek 200).

The commanding general, General DeWitt, had made the order to recommend internment before most politicians had made any public statements concerning their support for the internment. The recommendation for internment came from General DeWitt and his staff. Not from pressure groups, or politicians or anyone else for that matter. It comes down to the fact that: The racism exhibited by the general and his staff was blatant and unmistakable, and clearly corresponded to (if it did not surpass) that of articulate public opinion along the Pacific Coast in the early months of the war (tenBroek 208) It was not a military necessity to intern the Japanese so why did the Army see fit to go through with it Its clearly because of a racist staff of officers. The people of the west coast, and maybe even the Army, were nervous and scared of the yellow peril. They ended up striking out at the shadow of the problem, the Japanese, instead of the real problem, their own fears and stereotypes, and by this blow they damaged not the enemy, but their own Constitution and free way of life.

The Constitutional questions raised by the internment of the Japanese were many. But the most important question isth is. Was the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast constitutional In Korematsu vs. U.S., we hear from the Supreme Court on whether the evacuation is Constitutional. The ruling was that although prejudice based on race is unconstitutional, in the specific case of the Japanese evacuation its was ruled as Constitutional because it was relevant to measures for our national defense and for the successful prosecution of the war (Myer 260). We see here that the racism of the Army is justified by military necessity, which is used over and over again to describe the need for Japanese internment. But there was no military necessity at the time of internment or any time during the war.

Throughout the different Supreme Court cases, the court supported the militarys decision of necessity while saying at the same time that the internment was unconstitutional at any other time because of its racism. It must be stated that although the U.S. won the Korematsu case, some of the justices decided explicitly in favor of Korematsu because the evacuation was in fact unconstitutional. The case that addressed the actual internment of the Japanese in relocation centers was the Endo case. Although Miss. Endo won the case because the authorization for detention was not expressly given under the order that established the War Relocation Authority, the Supreme Court never actually made a decision on the Constitutionality of the internment of the Japanese. This seems to say that the highest court in the land was afraid to rebuff the military.

What does this say about the Supreme Court who is supposed to be protectors of the people. Will the court lie down in front of the military in the future when even more constitutional rights are at stake Through its decisions, the Supreme Court clearly circumvented the constitution in order to protect the military, as an institution that would not directly violate the rights of its people under any circumstances. Why would the military deprive the people who pay its wages, of their Constitutional rights The answer is military racism. This would not happen to white people in America. The internment is just another example of the dominant portion of society making decisions that are only based on maintaining their rule.

The military was afraid of what the Japanese people might do to sabotage strategic areas in the U.S. even though there was no proof that anything like that would or could happen. The Japanese internment during World War II was hailed by the A.C.L.U. as the greatest deprivation of civil rights by government in this country since slavery (James 3) and thats precisely what it was. The xenophobia shown by whites of the west coast dates back to the establishment of California as the Bear Flag Republic and continued to show itself through various anti-Oriental exclusion laws until the mid 1900's. These exclusionist policies culminated in the forced exile of almost a whole nation of Japanese immigrants (most of them living on the west coast at the time) during W.W. II. The internment was unconstitutional but defended by the Supreme Court as a military necessity although it was obviously a deprivation of civil rights. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the west coast public was driven in to a state of war hysteria through pre-war conditioning by means of movies and books and later on through the use of yellow journalism depicting Japanese Americans as a yellow peril.

This functioned to demonize the Japanese, and make the public feel that they were disloyal as a race and not on an individual level. The general in charge of the Western Defense Command was General DeWitt, who, even though there was no need to intern the Japanese, made the recommendation to president Roosevelt to do so anyway. This is because of the militarys, and most of the publics prejudice against non-white foreigners at the time; which can be seen in the fact that almost no persons of Italian or German descent were interned yet almost all Japanese, American citizens or not, were interned. The public outcry for the internment was practically only caused by the extensive amount of propaganda used against the Japanese in the media, which shaped the anti-Japanese stereotypes that so many people had at the time. The only theory that does not cave in on serious inquiry is that military racism, which mirrored the publics racism, was the cause of the internment. There was no military necessity for the internment and the pressure groups and politicians at the time were not organized and acted after the decision for internment had already been made by the military.

Because of the racism exhibited by the military, and the Supreme Courts defense of the internment, although unconstitutional, we see a precedent developing which could render the Constitution only a formality to be side stepped in the future in order for the military to get what it wants. This will be a serious issue to be addressed during later internal conflicts. Conrat, Maisie and Richard, Executive Order 9066. Anderson, Ritchie and Simon, Los Angeles, California, 1972.

Daniels, Roger, Prisoners Without Trial. Hill and Wang, New York, 1993. Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, INC. 1971 James, Thomas, Exile Within. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987.

Meyer, Dillon S., Uprooted Americans. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona 1971. Spicer, Edward H., Hansen, As ael T., Luo mala, Katherine, Oiler, Marvin K., Impounded People. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1969. tenBroek, Jacobus, Barnhart, Edward N., Matson, Floyd W., Prejudice, War, and the Constitution: Causes and Consequences of the Evacuation of the Japanese Americans in World War II. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954.