Japanese Internment :: Japan War History Essays

Nipponese Internment The Virtual Museum Of The City Of San Francisco has schematic a great source for those interested in studying the immurement of Nipponese during World War II. This topic is reflected very accurately and fair in the archives of the museum because the archives consist of primary documents. Their archives of received newspaper articles are the basis of this research document. The content listed on the museums web site is very relevant to the topic of Japanese immurement because it provides a wealth of primary documents including opinions of ordinary people writing to their newspaper to express a wide variety of viewpoints on the subject of Japanese internment during the Second World War. One question stands above altogether some others and the virtual museum gives a good first-hand account of events to answer it - what happened to the Japanese and wherefore were they forced to move? To answer this question, the archives of the Virtual Museum Of The City O f San Francisco should be consulted.On February 14, 1942 Lt. General J. L. DeWitt, commanding general of the Fourth Army and the Hesperian Defense Commandi recommended to the War Department, the evacuationii of Japanese living along the Pacific coast, deemed a Military Zone. About 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, many of those people American citizens, living on the West Coast and Southern Arizona were upstage from their homes to locations of the governing bodys choosing. The very term evacuation is misleading to phrase the least because it suggests that the Japanese were being relocated to protect their safety. The excuses cited by the armament were to establish broad civil control, anti-sabotage, and counter-espionage measures.iii The reasons given to justify evacuation suggested that the Japanese were a panic to the nation and not the nation a threat to the Japanese.Drawing a dichotomy, the United States Government tried to put a human face on the forced evacuations by c laiming America was defend the Japanese by moving them out of a warfare geographical zone. The government would claim it was helping the Japanese by relocating the Japanese to a zone of safety outside the military zone. Statements from the government would contradict each other throughout this period of time. For instance, Japanese-Americans were termed enemy aliens, while at the same time, they were encourage to be good citizens and loyal Americans by enlisting in the war effort, relocating voluntarily, offering no resistance and no questioning of the relocation efforts and activities.