Pearl Harbor Attack Research Paper

Words: 798
Pages: 4

Dylan Jackson
English IV
Krantz
14 May 2018
Fear: an Ancient Oppressor
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” -Mark Twain When someone is fearful they can act on impulses or panic. They do not fully think things through. They change, morphing into an uncontrollable monster. They hurt those around them, causing emotional and sometimes physical distress. There are some who have courage, who rise up and meet these monsters face to face; however, for those who are outnumbered they have no other option but to give in or try to run. Fear is also strange in the way that it has highs and lows. As time passes so does the fear, and those who once were fearful become understanding. This pathway of fear can be seen
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However, this fear was completely unnecessary since Japanese Americans were not involved in the bombing. Writer Roger Daniels comments that “Many Americans were convinced that Japanese Americans in Hawaii assisted the Japanese in their attack on Pearl Harbor ” (Gale U.S. History). Innocent citizens were blamed for the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor even though these Japanese Americans had nothing to do with the crime and were, in most cases, just as angry and fearful about it as the rest of their country. The morning sneak-attack struck fear throughout America, causing the decision for the internment- government ordered relocation- of all Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Looking back this internment was unnecessary. There was no way that these Japanese Americans could have been in contact with the Japanese government in planning to take down America. Undeserving Japanese Americans were taken from their homes, businesses, and regular lifestyles and thrown into cramped camps without any mention of when lives would return back to normal. Instead of trying to work with each other to face the terrors of fighting a World War while being a country constructed out of immigrants coming from all around the world, Americans succumbed to their fear and allowed it to overtake their decisions and influence their way …show more content…
Roosevelt. All Japanese Americans were to be collected and processed into 1 of 10 internment camps. These camps, located in Colorado, Idaho, Arkansas, California, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming, were packed full with innocent citizens. A journalist studying these prison-like camps wrote an article that describes how both “Children and adults had to stand in line for many things, including eating and going to the bathroom” (amhistory.com). The camps were built quickly and without plumbing or proper cooking areas. These camps may be compared to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany against the Jews, however they were not as violent. Similar to concentration camps, these internment camps were nearly impossible to escape from. The WRA only allowed Japanese Americans to leave camps for work or education and to serve in our military. They were surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire and snipers looking down on them in towers. The War Relocation Authority tried to provide proper care for all their prisoners as long as they were obeying the rules. Some internee’s spoke out about their living conditions and were punished, bringing knowledge about the living conditions in the internment camps such as that “troops guarding them shot and killed unarmed inmates, most of whom were protesting conditions” (Gale U.S. History). Seeing how others were treated when they tried to rise up the Japanese Americans