Preview

Essay On Japanese American Internment Camps

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
791 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Japanese American Internment Camps
The conditions inside the United States internment camps were extremely overcrowded and provided very poor living conditions. According to the reports published by the War Relocation Authority, the administering agency in 1943, Japanese Americans were housed in tar paper covered barracks with guard towers and barbed wire fences for boundary. Moreover, not only were these boundaries just boundaries. They were guarded by military police with rifles, and numerous Japanese Americans in these internment camps were killed by the military guards for not following the orders or because they resisted the officers.
Moreover, these internment camps were built in simple frame construction without a proper water facility or in other words plumbing, nor cooking facilities and the only things the government provided for a barrack were cots,
…show more content…
Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per internee and served by fellow internees in an extremely crowded mess hall filled with 250 to 300 people. In many accounts of the camps, Japanese Americans mentioned their meals with “dust storms”. The dust storms blew into their food too, which were often only a tin cup and a bowl with milk, and covered them with dust. However they were forced to drink them because that was all they had.
Though it seems like an contradictory action by the United States, education was provided by the War Relocation Authority (an agency that relocated and interned enemy aliens during World War 2) for all school age residents at the internment camps. However the courses were already planned and the government hired teachers who assisted the state departments of education. The extra vocational training that was provided at the relocation center for communication with the adults, were only for the evacuees who were able to play a more effective role in agriculture or industry outside the centers (Brown and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The internment camps during World War 2 was seen as necessary, positive and needed to those who were not interned because of the Pearl Harbor Bombing in 1941, which was the hegemonic narrative. Many euphemisms were used to disguise the truth behind the interment of the Japanese-Americans like the words camp, opportunities and more. The place where Japanese-Americans were interned was anything but a camp, it was where they experienced no happiness or fun. It was simply a place where the Japanese- Americans were segregated from others and treated as prisoners who had to be locked in and constantly watched with machine guns being pointed at them. In When the Emperor was Divine, Otsuka demonstrates how the internment camps had psychologically damaged and traumatized everyone from how the girl starts to become distant with her family, the woman breaking down trying to cope with…

    • 1578 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In a video created by the INS in 1945 that highlights the life inside Crystal City Internment Camp it stated that the camp was equipped with electricity, plumbing, and running water throughout. All housing units were provided with daily milk deliveries, ice boxes, linens, chairs, and some even had their own toilets. Crystal City was seen as the model camp of all camps, however there were underlining reasons as to why internees in Crystal City had it so much better than others, and that reasoning was a part of the whole bigger picture of what really happened within the camp. Officials knew that how they treated the internees here could have a direct effect on how American POW’s and American’s being held in Japan and Germany were being…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The camp also served as the only internment center ruled under martial law and occupied by the Army. “Squalid housing and sanitation, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate food and medical care at the Tule Lake Segregation Center led to increasing dissatisfaction.” (Tule Lake Committee) Completely opposite of the Tule Lake Segregation Center, Honouliuli Internment Camp included a medical dispensary, dental clinic, tailor shop, mess hall and a post exchange that offered tobacco, soft drinks and snacks. “Swedish Vice Consul Gustaf Olson, who inspected Honouliuli on at least three occasions, noted that kitchens were equipped with modern ranges and that food supplies were of the ‘best quality.’” (Department of Interior) The inmates also participated in activities like wood carving, letter writing, vegetable gardening, camp chores, and family visits. At Tule Lake Segregation Center inmates were forced to work under unhealthy conditions and the officials had no consideration for the idea of “family.” Many protests began in the Tule Lake Segregation Center that resulted in severe punishments. At the Honouliuli Internment Camp, citizen inmates were separated by Japanese…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through these difficult times, the reader is exposed to the conditions around 1945. Japanese Americans had to be relocated, but still had many opportunities in these camps. In fact, it's noted that over two hundred individuals voluntarily chose to move into the camps. The ones who did not made the best out of their situation. Sports teams, dance classes, school, and religious buildings were all implemented into the internment camps. Some individuals even qualified for job opportunities. Many Japanese who showed loyalty to the U.S. were rewarded. Japanese Americans began to live a life of exclusion without many…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    SAISE Summary – US internment camps during WWII Analysis – not much taught in our schools about US internment camps, taught about German and Japanese camps, US had many camps/detention centers – some were almost as bad as the German concentration camps, not called concentration camps – had a negative connotation – camps sounded better, number varies in research 24 – 30, Seagoville most unusual camp run by INS, set up like a college campus, had dorms, had many luxuries, had more freedom than those which held only men, had hospital, rec hall, library, allowed gardening, farming and many outside activities, still a prison as evidence by barbed wire fence and guards, was a women’s reformatory prior to WWII, able to cook and grow own food, Crystal City, Texas family internment camp - a prison, more freedom than other camps, largest camp in country, housed whole families, were able to grow & cook own food, whole families traded for “more important” American prisoners in Germany & Japan, had…

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The putting of the Japanese Americans in these camps due to their background was a horrible…

    • 788 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During World War II, a time of confusion and fear settled around America. Previously respected and average everyday citizens became feared and outcast by most people in the United States. “All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure (Justice Hugo Black).” The government declared that all the people of Japanese descent living along the Pacific coast be sent to live in concentration camps where the living arrangements were not the most pleasant and were overcrowded.…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In conclusion, the Japanese Internment was a completely justified and strategical move based upon the destruction and fear brought by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the deception and betrayal the Japanese stretched upon us, and the evidence and beliefs against the Japanese such as the stereotype presented in document 3 or the 50 to 60 dangerous Japanese soldiers in each…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Japanese Internment during World War II occurred because the government and American people reacted to the war with japan and attacks on pearl harbour by profiling all japanese…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Internment camps came into action on February 19,1942 when the Executive Order 9066 was passed. The reason for internment camps on Americans with Japanese decent was because of the attack at Pearl Harbor. It was because two-thirds of the Japanese total population lived in Hawaii at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans lost a business worth of $400 million they had to live out of penned in barbed wire and armed…

    • 77 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Farewell To Manzanar

    • 1647 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In the events leading up to their eventual incarceration, those put in internment camps had to sacrifice their homes and belongings; anything that they could not carry had to be sold. The people who were…

    • 1647 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Japanese were put into places called internment camps. One of the camp was in Washington state where the Puyallup Fairgrounds stands today. It was called Camp Harmony. This camp was the only camp in washington state and was one of the most populated temporary detention centers. The first inmate arrival was April 28, 1942 and the last inmate departure was September 12, 1942. People were not in this camp for long.…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “When I came to power,I did not want the concentration camps to become old age prisoner homes,but instruments of torture.” Adolf Hitler Japanese bombed the pearl harbor so they relocated the american japanese away from the border. Nazi took jews and put them into concentration camps so they could be tortured and killed because hitler thought that they were a threat to the economy.Jewish and Japenese people were put into a camp because of the way they are or what they believed in. Japanese internment camps and Jewish concentration camps are not the same because Japanese were only relocated,Jews were killed, and Japanese were provided with food and homes for them and their family.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The internment of Japanese Americans was an immoral act based on prejudice and imagined threat rather than justice and law. The social, physical, and physiological consequences of living in overcrowded camps were lifelong. It took years for the Japanese Americans to re-establish themselves again as trustworthy US citizens. Today, the society cherishes and admires Japanese Americans for their healthy lifestyle, longevity, and intelligence.…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    WW2 Internment

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Most of those forced into the camps were American born; others were Japanese immigrants. However, all had already made a good themselves in America. Many were professionals such as lawyers, and doctors, and thousands of Japanese Americans even served in the U.S. army during WWII. Many photographs depict the difficulties that many Japanese American’s had adjusting to life in the camps. Entire families were given one room to live in. Showers and toilets were communal and often set in the middle of the camps offering no privacy for the internees. Internees could not bring personal belongings into the camps, so they often only had the clothes they were wearing. some of the internees were separated from their families, adult or child. For children who are the age of seventeen, were given an loyalty test, in which officials were to ask questions. Surprisingly the test only consisted of two questions, 1. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered? (Females were asked if they were willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or Women's Army Corps.) 2. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays