Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Life in Japanese Internment Camp free essay sample

The evacuees produced own food and other products for themselves. II. The evacuees adapted to their new environment by creating means of joy and happiness. A. The internees played games and sports. B. The internees made use of arts and music to create joy. C. The internees, especially women, enjoyed the freedom from having to do housework. D. The internees continued with what they did outside the barbed wire. III. The internees had no privacy and were always reminded of the fact that they are being controlled and supervised. A. Everywhere, they are surrounded by factors that force them to acknowledge the fact that they are being interned such as barbed wire and soldiers. B. The lack of privacy can be shown during meal time. C. The structure of the camps are meant to give the internees no private time. IV. The internees lost relationship with people around them. A. The internees lost relationship with their families. We will write a custom essay sample on Life in Japanese Internment Camp or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page B. The internees lost relationship with their village people. . C. The internment forced the internees to lose the traditional relationship etween Issei and Nisei. Conclusion The Unimaginable: The Life in Japanese American Internment Camp World War II was a time of mass hatred and unnecessary sufferings of innocents. This belief is, in most part, based off of the establishment of Jewish concentration camp for the Holocaust. However, that is not the whole picture. Japanese Americans in the United States of America were forcefully moved to concentration camps, what they called relocation camps, and lost all their possessions just because they looked like the citizens of Japan who attacked the U. S. in December 7th, 1941. These Japanese Americans, men, women, and babies, had to suffer the consequences of the action taken by the people on the other side of the world just because of their appearance and ethnicity. During the internment, even though the Japanese Americans were able to adapt to their new environment, the Japanese American internment camps robbed the evacuees of their basic rights. The evacuees adapted to their new environment by establishing communities and creating joy within the harsh conditions. Despite so, the camps took away the internees’ rights to have privacy and forced them to lose relationship with people they love and care. Since the 1880s, the Japanese came to United States of America for sugar and pineapple crops in Hawaii (Fremon 12). By 1900, there were almost 25,000 Japanese Americans, including Issei, first generation, and Nisei, Issei’s children, in the Pacific Coast (12). However, more and more anti-Japanese groups including the Japanese Laundry League formed as Japanese succeeded in their American lives (13). Starting from there, the Japanese Americans had to face discrimination from every corner of their lives. In 1906, San Francisco removed Japanese students from white school and made them attend the segregated school in Chinatown (13). This problem was resolved by the Gentlemen’s agreement between America and Japan in which Japan agreed to stop Japanese immigration and American agreed to stop the segregated school system (14). Facing discrimination, the Issei and Nisei still did well; only 1600 Issei owned farms, but they produced almost 30%-35% of all fruits or vegetables in California (18). They united with each other and helped each other live in the U. S. A. Continuing with the discrimination from whites and the endurance of that discrimination, Japanese population was less than one-tenth of U. S. population, and they were not a threat to American neighbors by number (20). However, the Japanese Americans’ lives were diminished by the Japanese aircraft attack of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 7, 1941 (Grapes 12). In addition to the already-existing Japanese discrimination, the Pearl Harbor attack and the accusation of â€Å"fifth column† activity by Japanese triggered the anti-Asian sentiment (12). The attack of Pearl Harbor made the Japanese Americans the target of Americans; a few hours after the attack, about 3000 suspected spies, mostly Japanese Americans, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (Yancey 25). By the night of December 7, 1942, hundreds of people were in custody (Fremon 22). Also, on December 8, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to Congress for a Declaration of War against Japan (7). Then, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which was one of the greatest violations of civil rights in American history (31). This order, recommended by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and General John DeWitt, gave the army the right to â€Å"relocate all persons of Japanese lineage as well as others who might threaten the security of the country† (Yancey 29). With this order, more than 112,000 Japanese Americans, treated as traitors, were evacuated from the western coast in 1942 (Fremon 8). After the passage of the order, DeWitt issued first proclamation on March 2, 1942 which â€Å"called for two military zones: zone 1 covered the western third of California, Oregon, and Washington, and the southern quarter of Arizona; Zone 2 covered remainder of four states† (34). Japanese Americans had to leave the zone by direct and indirect force, and the government passed the law which gave the military authority to move Nisei and Issei (34). Along with that, the Executive Order 9012, passed in March, created the War Relocation Authority (WRA) (35). The WRA’s job was to take charge of the internees after they were moved to the camps (35). The Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) tried to fight against it. However, because it was too young and they were afraid that Americans would think they were really spies if they won’t cooperate, JACL decided to follow WRA (36). Furthermore, in â€Å"March 27, DeWitt issued Public Proclamation Number 4 which forced persons of Japanese ancestry to stay in military zone 1 after the end of the month, and on March 27, DeWitt issued Exclusion Order Number 1 in which persons of Japanese ancestry were moved from Washington to camp in Manzanar, California† (37). During the war, there were more than 100 evacuation orders and, through this, the innocent Japanese Americans suffered the consequences (37). Despite the abrupt news of internment, the Japanese Americans managed to quickly adapt to the newly provided environment. One of the ways that the Japanese Americans adapted to their new environment was by forming communities at the camps. This is one of the first things that the evacuees did at the camps, and they, with WRA, did so by establishing schools. One of every four evacuees was a child, â€Å"so college-educated Nisei began organizing schools, some of the first institutions to be established in the camps† (Yancey Life in a Japanese 53). On September 15, 1942, nursery and elementary schools opened in Manzanar Camp, a relocation camp in Manzanar, under the leadership of Dr. Genevieve W. Carter, a female superintendent of education for the camp (Cooper 31). The classes began in assembly centers, led by inexperienced, but eager volunteers. After the WRA took over, it hired Caucasian teachers to live and work in the camps (Yancey Life in a Japanese 54). However, not many came to the camp because the pay was low, $1,620 a year. At Manzanar Camp, along with the 1,100 elementary school students, there were almost 1,400 high school students. The high school opened in September 28 and â€Å"it filled block seven: the mess hall, recreation building, and all fourteen barracks† (Cooper 31). There were as many as sixty students in a classroom (Cooper 31). At first, the classes did not have supplies such as blackboards, books, chairs, tables, and lab equipment (Yancey Life in a Japanese 55). However, many eagerly studied and thousands graduated high school in the camp and went to college or professional schools (Yancey Life in a Japanese 55). With the establishment of the school system, the evacuees got used to their new environment little by little. Along with the school system, the establishment of self-government helped to shape the new community in the camp. Each camp had its own Caucasian administrator and staff who were businesslike individuals who tried to overn fairly and give residents as much freedom as possible. One of the examples of this is when director Harry Stafford allowed the Minidoka, Idaho, Nisei baseball team to go to Idaho Falls to participate in the state championship. Also, at Manzanar, a camp official said, ‘The back gate of the camp was often open; the farm hands went freely in and out and [director Ralp h] Merritt looked with lenience upon recreational sorties [outings], since they were no danger to military security’† (Yancey The Internment 53). However, the Caucasian administration lacked the ability to control every aspect of the large camp. Thus, the evacuees elected or appointed spokespersons, or block managers, usually respected Issei, who linked the internees and staff (Yancey The Internment 53). These managers â€Å"supervised grounds maintenance, ensured that everyone had necessary provisions, and passed on official WRA announcements† (Yancey The Internment 53). In addition to the administrator and the block manager, there were community councils, mostly young adult Nisei who spoke English and were Americanized. These people worked on jobs such as policy making and dealing with mild infractions of the law (54). The fact that the evacuees organized themselves into different levels or ranks show that they are willing to adapt to the new camp life. Finally, the evacuees established community through producing their own food and other products. At first, the WRA took responsibility of feeding the evacuees and they did so by giving the evacuees American food (Yancey The Internment 51). One internee said, â€Å"They issued us army mess kits, the round metal kind that fold over, and plopped in scoops of canned Vienna sausage, canned string beans, [and] steamed rice that had been cooked too long† (Yancey The Internment 51). Then, when the evacuees did not finish their portion because the food was too bad, the authorities decided to cut down the portion; the authorities thought the evacuees did so because the portion was too large (51). In response, the internees took the responsibility. The farmers and laborers plowed, planted, and produced crops such as â€Å"cabbage, squash, tomatoes, and soybeans (51). These crops they produced are the main ingredient for most of the Japanese diet (51). In addition, some raised cattle, poultry, and hogs, and with these, the menus became more various and the life in camp became much more tolerable. Along with food production, the evacuees worked in food processing; the internees at Manzanar made their own soy sauce, and tofu-making plants were a part of each camp (51). To obtain jars for glassware, they ate great amount of peanut butter (52). By doing so, the evacuees were able to establish small repair shops, beauty parlors, and dry-goods stores which resembled communities from outside the barbed wire (52). As the internees gained more authority over some aspects of their lives, such as diet, they were able to establish their own communities at the camps. Another way that the evacuees adapted to their new environment was by making their lives more enjoyable by actually creating happiness in the situation they were given. One way to create happiness was through sports. Aside from the common belief that the internees could only sleep, eat, and work, sports were one of the activities that took the time of many evacuees (Fremon 49). Even in normal society, sports are used to entertain both players and the audience, and the fact that sports existed at the camps show how the evacuees also tried to create some entertainment at the camps. Some of the sports they played include basketball, volleyball, and sumo wrestling with baseball being the most popular (Fremon 50). For example, a baseball team, Livingston Dodgers, brought their uniforms and equipment to the camp and one of the players, Gilbert Tanji, said that he actually liked camp better than outside because there was more competition (50). In fact, there were as many as 100 teams active at one time at some centers and they ranged from children to Issei in their sixties (Yancey The Internment 56). The big number shows how popular sports were and how great people’s longing for entertainment and joy was at the camps. These teams competed against each other and some, the Hunt team, even went out to the state championship (Yancey The way 62). Indoor sports were present too though they were limited to those that took little space like â€Å"Ping-Pong, judo, boxing and badminton† (Yancey The Internment 56). Also, by the end of 1943, the evacuees were occasionally permitted to leave the grounds so that hiking and swimming became popular pastimes (56). From these sports, the internees were able to create happiness and enjoy the life in camp more. In addition to sports, which were mostly for men, women tried to make their lives at camp better by enjoying the freedom they were provided. They were freed from the obligation of the traditional role and filled that time with what they actually wished to do. Before entering the camp, women had their time filled with unending hard work such as cleaning, shopping, cooking, sewing, and more (Yancey Life in a Japanese 53). Because they had to help both their children and their husbands when they were in need, they had almost no leisure time to sit and talk with friends (53). However, their lives changed after they got in the camps. They did not have to clean too much given that the houses were single-room apartments, did not have to prepare meals given that they were served three times a day, did not have to clean much given that the government provided some clothes, and did not have to care about paying bills too much given that there were only few bills to be paid (Yancey Life in a Japanese 53). With the new free time, women were able to develop friendships and take care of themselves more often (Yancey Life in a Japanese 53). They enjoyed the newly earned leisure time and began developing hobbies or new interests at the camps (Yancey Life in a Japanese 53). Therefore, women were able to enjoy the life at the camps with their acceptance to the new leisure time. Furthermore, the continuing of activities from outside the barbed wire also provided happiness for the evacuees. One example of these activities is the gardening (Fremon 59). The internees who enjoyed gardening and who continued to do so in the camps took great pride in making their barren surroundings as beautiful as possible (Yancey Life in a Japanese 61). By working together to create large gardens and landscaping parks that required constant care, the internees were able to spend time with their favorite actions. In general, people forget their current situation when they concentrate on an activity they enjoy very much (Yancey Life in a Japanese 61). With these gardeners, the Gila Camp, located in Arizona desert, turned into a beautiful community with lawns, trees, and vegetable gardens (Yancey Life in a Japanese 31). At other camps, there were small gardens planted by the evacuees in front of their shelters (Fremon 60). Similar to gardening, the farmers took great pride in products they produced (Yancey Life in a Japanese 59). At Manzanar camp, the farmers cultivated almost fifteen hundred acres of land and at Gila River camp, they cultivated over seven thousand (Yancey Life in a Japanese 59-60). The crops ranged from vegetables, including cabbage, squash, and tomatoes, to field crops such as soybeans and guayule (Yancey Life in a Japanese 60). The farmers at Manzanar camp also provided the internees with fresh apples and pears by reviving abandoned an orchard from a previous owner (Yancey Life in a Japanese 60). By doing gardening and cultivating crops, the internees felt proud and created joy inside the barbed wire. Lastly, the internees became happy was through arts and music. At the camps, former musicians formed bands and orchestras and performed music from classical music to the â€Å"jitterbug for high school dances† (Yancey Life in a Japanese 62). Also, schools embraced music by having classes such as choir classes and performing concerts (Houston and Houston 90). At the camps, there were, as examples provided, music, the schools performed in concerts, assemblies, and talent shows. With these activities, the internees were kept busy and distracted from thinking about the fact that they are guiltlessly arrested (Houston and Houston 90). Despite the Japanese Americans’ attempts to adapt to their new environment, the camps continuously reminded the internees that they are being arrested. During the camp life, it was almost impossible for the internees to forget about the fact that they were being arrested and were always being watched. The relocation centers were surrounded by barbed wire fences, guard towers with machine guns, and searchlights (Yancey Life in a Japanese 47). Though they were just barbed wire fences, the mindset and the feeling of being trapped were very much present within the existence of the fences. With these fences, along with the machine guns and searchlights, the evacuees must have realized that they were being trapped every second. Furthermore, most of the relocation camps were located in desolate regions of the country, far from cities, highways, and railroads. Also, they were built at the most unproductive land; the Jerome and Rohwer camps were built on â€Å"Arkansas swampland infested with malarial mosquitoes† (Yancey Life in a Japanese 46). At some camps, the temperature went up high as 106 degrees Fahrenheit: Topaz center (Yancey Life in a Japanese 46). The climate was so bad that one internee said, â€Å"The desert was bad enough The constant storms loaded with sand and dust made it worse Down in our hearts we cried and cursed this government every time when we were showered with dust† (Yancey Life in a Japanese 47). With the weather so disastrous, the internees were kept reminded of the fact that they are at relocation camps and that their lives had changed because of the internment. With the continuous reminder that they are being interned by their own government, the internees faced the lack of privacy. One of the evidence that the life in camps showed lack of privacy was the meal time. The meals were provided three times a day, as mentioned above, and they were communal (Yancey Life in a Japanese 44). The internees ate at noisy cafeteria-style mess halls where people stood in long lines and ate at big tables (Cooper 25). One of the evacuees said, â€Å"It wasn’t like having a meal made at home with loving hands† (Cooper 25). For most Japanese people, mealtime was the center of their family scene, but after they came to the internment camps, they lost the big part of family private time Houston and Houston 30). Therefore, the mealtimes show that the evacuees lacked privacy they used to enjoy. In addition to the mealtime, the whole building structure of the camps prevented the evacuees from having any private time. First of all, the houses were very small with one-room apartment measuring twenty by twenty five feet where, in most cases, two families had to live (Cooper 25). Thus, for every apartment, there were about eight to ten people who did not know each other. They had sleep while â€Å"listening to the heavy snoring of strange bedfellow† (Cooper 25). Not only were the evacuees forced to sleep in small rooms that looked like â€Å"chicken coops† where â€Å"there were no ceilings so that if a baby cried 150 feet down on the other end of this long line of cubicles, the crying could be heard throughout the entire building,† the fact that they had to share even that room with other strangers made the condition seem inhumane (Alonso 40). Also, the camps were built in a way that even the bathrooms and showers had no dividers (Alonso 41). The toilets were back-to-back down the middle of the room and for the internees who enjoyed the luxury of hot, relaxing bath before, this was very shocking (Yancey Life in a Japanese 44). One woman felt like the camps were dehumanizing the internees and said that one â€Å"cannot deport 110,000 people unless [he] has stopped seeing individuals† (Alonso 42). Regarding the information, one can undoubtedly state that the internees were given no right to have privacy or even be humans at the camps. Lastly, the Japanese Americans had to suffer loss of relationship with the people they love. The internment forced the Japanese Americans to lose relationships with their families. For the Japanese Americans, it is their culture to eat together and have mealtime as center of their family scene. However, after they were arrested, they were forced to eat at the mess halls where it was almost impossible to bring families together. For example, the older members of family, mostly grandparents, had to get their food delivered because they could not walk three blocks three times a day. Also, children began eating with their friends instead of their family (Houston and Houston 30-31). After continuing with this kind of life for few years, the Japanese Americans collapsed in the end. One of the internees said that â€Å"whatever dignity or feeling of filial strength we may have known before December 1941 was lost, and we did not recover it until many years after the war† (Houston and Houston 32). Having a good family relationship is one of the key points in living a happy life, but the internment forced the Japanese Americans to lose their rights to do so. In addition to family relationships, the Japanese Americans lost relationships with their beloved neighbors and village people. Mary Tsukamoto, one of the internees, and her family had to experience separation with their beloved community people. Their community, consisting of mostly Japanese Americans, went through hardships, such as the Depression, and were very close to each other. They laughed, cried, and mourned together. However, they had to be separated when the internment of Japanese Americans were announced; the line that divided people into different camps was drawn in the middle of the community. This was such a big shock that one of the community member said, â€Å"We’ll never forget the shock and grief and the sorrow on top of everything else that was happening to us† (Grapes 132-133). Because of the internment, the Japanese Americans had to give up on their relationship with people they love, and this is something that should not have happened just because of their ethnicity and appearances. Lastly, the traditional relationship between the Issei and Nisei was lost because of the internment. Before the internment, the young Issei listened nd respected the older and experienced Nisei. However, at the camps, the Issei began forming gangs because they did not have to help their parents after school anymore. Not only that, they used the fact that they are United States citizens and that they outnumber Nisei to overpower them. In response, Nisei generation ridiculed the Issei for having powerless citizenship (Fremon 64-65). From these, it is apparent that the Nisei and Issei lost their traditional relationship and some internees never regained the relationship even when the internment was over. After all, the Japanese Americans adjusted to their new environment and at the same time, suffered consequences of the attack of the Pearl Harbor. They adjusted by forming new communities and creating joy, and they suffered the lack of privacy and loss of relationships because of the internment. On December 18, 1944, the United States Army finally declared that the evacuation of Japanese Americans is over. However, the order formally came into effect on January 2, 1945 (Alonso 96). Even though they were free from internment, they still had to suffer the aftermath of the internment through rebuilding trust, wealth, and communities; in some cases, they were still treated as if they are threat to the American community (Alonso 97). Therefore, in 1948, the federal government passed the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act which â€Å"allowed those who were in internment camps to file claims with the federal government, asking the United States government to pay back Japanese Americans for the money or property they lost† (Alonso 97). However, this Act had many problems. The Act was passed too late for it to help many Japanese Americans and the lost financial papers and records made the Japanese Americans to defend their lost properties. Also, the process for the repay too long, while the government had to spend almost three times the amount to fight for it (Alonso 97-98). Most of all, the Act did not pay the real price for the properties and the kind of emotional sufferings (Alonso 98). In order to prevent events like this to happen again, President Nixon, in 1971, signed a law that required â€Å"action by Congress before any order like Executive Order 9066 could ever be issued again† (Alonso 99). Later, in 1988, the Japanese Americans felt like they deserved real reparations for their sufferings. Therefore, on August 10, 1988, against many oppositions, the bill for reparation was passed. The bill said that the U. S. government was wrong on suspecting the Japanese Americans of spying and their actions were too extreme. Also, the bill â€Å"promised twenty thousand dollars tax free to each prisoner of the internment camps who was alive when the bill passed† (Alonso 104-105). Even though the Japanese Americans Internment was officially over, the impact of the unjustness will remain forever, so this type of events should never happen in the United States ever again. Works Cited Alonso, Karen. Korematsu V. United States. Springfield: Enslow Publishers, 1998. Cooper, Michael. Remembering Manzanar: Life In a Japanese Relocation Camp. New York: Clarion Books, 2002. Fremon, David. Japanese-American Internment. Springfield: Enslow Publishers, 1996. Grapes, Bryan. Japanese Americans Internment Camps. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001. Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James Houston. Farewell To Manzanar: A True Story Of Japanese American Experience Of During And After The World War II Internment. Boston: San Francisco Book Company and Houghton Mifflin Book, 1973. Yancey, Diane. Life in a Japanese American Internment Camp. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998. Yancey, Diane. The Internment of the Japanese. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001.

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