Japanese Americans Want to Educate Others About Injustice
By: Floyd Mori
Tags: History, Injustice, World War II, Racism, Asian American

Japanese Americans Want to Educate Others About Injustice

An American concentration camp of World War II (Image in the public domain)

They want people to know the history

The ultimate racial profiling and egregious act against the Constitution of the United States happened during World War II. With the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, Americans of Japanese heritage found themselves regarded as enemies of the United States. Around 120,000 were removed from their homes on the West Coast of the United States and unjustly incarcerated in what has become known as “America’s concentration camps.” Most were American citizens.

Racism against Asian immigrants was rampant since they first arrived on the shores of the United States. When they married and had children, their American citizen offspring also faced extreme racism. It was something they dealt with on a daily basis. People looked at them as being different and strange. They were discriminated against regularly.

Some of the leaders within the Japanese American communities started an organization in 1929 to fight against the racism they faced. They established the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and started to try to turn the tide of the racism against them. They had been fighting for civil rights for over ten years when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

When World War II started, it was an excuse for America to treat Japanese Americans and their immigrant parents with extreme forms of racism. There were groups which were openly against the people of Japanese heritage. Some of the main groups which were racist toward Japanese immigrants and their American children were farm groups. Some of the Japanese people were seeing success in farming so they became competition for white farmers. The farm groups and others were in favor of mass incarceration of people who were ethnically Japanese. It was pushed by newspapers.

Although the government and the public could have no excuse to discriminate against all people of Asian background, they were freely able to persecute the people of Japanese heritage because of the war. This group of innocent people were ordered to leave their homes and be placed in camps.

Some were able to move to safe zones inland from the West Coast of the continental United States before the order for the camps came to fruition. The military leader of the West Coast Command ordered all people with any Japanese blood to be removed from their homes and incarcerated. They had to leave before the camps were ready so they stayed in temporary housing at assembly centers. These were mostly race tracks and county fairgrounds which had housed horses. The Japanese people in Hawaii were not gathered up as they were in mostly California, Oregon, and Washington. The military commander did not deem it necessary there.

Most of the people unjustly held in the camps had to stay for the duration of the war. When the war ended, they were sent on their way with a bus or train ride and $25. It was a horrible experience from which some people never did recover. They suffered horribly. Most did not talk about it for years because of the shame and humiliation they endured.

The JACL and Japanese Americans generally want people to know of this terrible experience which their community was made to endure during World War II. They are trying to teach others about the injustice so that no one else will ever have to suffer such an egregious act again.

There have been many books written about that period of American history. There have been camp preservation programs to teach about their experiences. There are teacher curriculum guides to teach about the history.

This should never happen to anyone else.

[Source: The Japanese American Story As Told Through A Collection Of Speeches And Articles, www.thejapaneseamericanstory.com]