Japanese-American Internment

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II by comparing this action with the freedom experienced by German-Americans during the same period. The author questions the inherent racism of Americans that enabled such an occurrence to be legally sanctioned, while German-Americans lived their lives freely, although Hitler and Germany were also enemies of America during World War II. The paper then presents a detailed background of the Japanese immigrant experience in America, contrasting this with the American ideal of freedom and the reality of racism. The experiences of African and Native-Americans are also considered. The paper then describes the actual Japanese internment, which was unprecedented event in American history. The paper further states how the Internment still has an effect on the psyche of the Japanese-American population today. The author concludes that the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was one of the great tragedies of American history.

Outline:
Introduction
Background: The Japanese Experience in America
Prejudice Unleashed: The Internment Experience
Conclusion

From the Paper:

" Naturally, the situation was worse the further removed from the Anglo-Saxon ideal a group might chance to be. After the Civil War, the newly reunited nation demanded a huge supply of cheap labor to build its rapidly expanding railroad network. In the West, this labor was provided, to a large extent, by settlers from Japan and China. Labor Contractors, generally Japanese or Chinese themselves actively recruited these workers and brought them to America. They helped to lay the foundations of America's industrial prosperity. White American racial attitudes combined with a nationwide railroad strike in 1877 to create the necessary conditions for a crackdown on Asian immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was soon followed by other, stricter acts, in 1892, 1902, and 1904. And as White America saw little, if any difference, between Japanese and any other Asians, the anti-Chinese immigration laws were followed by a Japanese Exclusion Act in 1907. By 1924, the United States had imposed an almost total ban on all immigration from East Asia, ..."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Asumah, Seth N., and Matthew Todd Bradley. "Making Sense of U.S. Immigration Policy and Multiculturalism." The Western Journal of Black Studies 25, no. 2 (2001): 82+.
• Chang, Gordon H., ed. Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, 1942-1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
• Collins, Donald E. Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War II. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.
• Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.
• Fugita, Stephen S., and David J. O'Brien. Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.

More papers on Japanese-American Internment:

• Analytical Essay # 26836 : "Japanese-American Internment"
• Essay # 17344 : "Japanese-American Internment in the U.S."
• Argumentative Essay # 149565 : "The Japanese-American Internment and 9/11"

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