Japanese Internment Camps Are a Dark Period

¶ … Japanese internment camps are a dark period of American history. The forced incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent was based solely on racism and a culture of fear. During World War II, Americans also counted Italians and Japanese as their archrivals but of these groups, it was only Japanese-Americans that were rounded up and placed into concentration camps. Just as African-American soldiers could not serve alongside their white counterparts, Japanese-American soldiers also had their own army units. Even before the creation of the internment camps, Japanese-Americans did not enjoy equal protection under the law, in spite of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

One of the reasons for the widespread discrimination against persons of Japanese descent was competition over low-wage jobs. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, white labor organizations lobbied to exclude Asians (not just Japanese but also Chinese) laborers from working on the railroads. However, this was decades after Asian laborers had helped to build those very railroads. The Asiatic Exclusion League was formed in 1905 to openly and vocally oppose the presence of Asian laborers in California businesses. It is fairly clear that in addition to xenophobia, many Americans on the west coast discriminated against Japanese people because of the threat they posed to the labor market. This was true for a number of different labor sectors including farming, fishing, lumber, and light industry.

These grassroots organizations were supported by formal legislation that was overtly discriminatory. For example, the federal government excluded Japanese persons from become naturalized citizens. This meant that Japanese people in the United States were politically disenfranchised. Also, the United States government prevented persons who of Asian descent from owning land, or from intermarrying with whites. Japanese-Americans were also routinely denied access to universities and professional organizations.

During World War Two, therefore, it was relatively simple to get the American public to condone the use of internment camps. Prejudice and racism were ingrained in the public consciousness and institutionalized in law. The wartime propaganda made it so that the American populace feared Japanese people and were willing to support the concentration camps. Internment camps were established throughout the West coast of the United States. The only area with a significant number of Japanese residents that managed to avoid the internment camps was Hawaii. This is because the Japanese community in Hawaii was entrenched and strong.

Unfortunately, the propaganda perpetuated the fear and persisted throughout the war. The President of the United States supported the internment camps in spite of there being no evidence that Japanese-Americans were engaging in anti-American activities such as espionage.