Essay On Japanese Internment Camps

Words: 484
Pages: 2

Imagine you were a Japanese-American. You did nothing wrong, but you got sent to camp for being Japanese. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans were treated like prisoners in their own country. Their “crime” was for being of Japanese ancestry. A country of free citizens locked up other free citizens under poor living conditions and hard work just based on their ancestry. To begin with, the internment camps affected a lot of Japanese-Americans’ freedom and way of life. 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry lived in the United States, and one-third of those people were born in Japan. After Pearl Harbor, all Japanese-Americans were sent away from the West Coast and sent to internment camps (History.com Staff). People were forced to evacuate their homes and leave jobs. Family members usually ended up getting separated and sent to different camps (Ina). This was considered a “military necessity.” This was to protect the Americans from sabotage. However, it was later confirmed to be because of racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political relationship (Ina). So, being of Japanese ancestry was considered a crime in the 1940s. In addition, the camps themselves were …show more content…
These Japanese-Americans, half of them being children, were imprisoned for up to four years in small camps surrounded in barbed wire and armed guards (Ina). According to the History.com Staff, “Some 3,600 Japanese-Americans entered the Armed Forces from the camp.” Families dined together at a community mess hall and children were expected to go to school (“Japanese-American Internment”). Some of the Japanese prisoners ended up dying because of poor medical care and emotional stresses; several died from armed guards (Ina). Some Japanese-Americans were allowed to return to the West Coast starting in 1945. The last internment camp closed in 1946 (History.com Staff). All this hard work was like a punishment for being