Speech On Japanese Internment Camps

Words: 1070
Pages: 5

“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan ("Franklin D. Roosevelt : Day of Infamy Speech-12/08/1941” Web).” Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke these infamous words the day after the Pearl Harbor incident. This tragedy instituted great amounts of change in the opinions of the average American citizen. Anti-Japanese sentiment grew in the United States because of the attack. The receivers of the sentiment were the Japanese Americans, most of which were American citizens, who were put in internment camps due to “military necessity.” Some Japanese Americans attempted to fight for their rights, while most were stuck in remote internment camps, warping the typical Japanese …show more content…
The different internment camps include Topaz, in Utah; Poston, in Arizona; Gila River, in Arizona; Amache, in Colorado; Heart Mountain, in Wyoming; Jerome, in Arkansas; Manzanar, in California; and Tule Lake, in California (World War II Japanese-American Internment Camp Documents, 1942-1946. Web). The Japanese Americans were sorted into camps by where they lived. While there were many Japanese Americans in Hawaii, there were simply too many to put into internment camps (Goldstein pg. 30). When orders went out to report to the internment camps, the Japanese American people had very little time to pack. Some had up to two weeks, while others had two days, even as little as two hours (Goldstein pg. 14). Most of the time, families could only bring what they could carry in their hands (Brimner pg. 36). They would be taken to small camps and then transferred to the larger, more permanent camps. Each internment camp could hold about 10,000 people and was set up somewhat like a military facility. There were barracks, mess halls, and toilet facilities, all separated by gender (Goldstein pg.