L10: World War Two - Part Two American Foreign Policy

L10: World War Two - Part TwoAmerican Foreign Policy

AgendaObjective:1. To understand the

causes and experiences of Japanese Internment

2. To understand the centrality of Japanese Interment in the war against Japan.

Schedule: 3. Lecture, Discussion,

Image and Video Analysis

Homework:1. Reading on the

Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb Due (G: Thurs 5/8; Y: Tues 5/13)

2. Civic Literacy: Last Day Tues 6/10

3. Facilitation Prep (Misc Dates)

Our Study of World War TwoPearl Harbor

(Causes)

Treatment of Japanese

Americans

America in Combat

The Dropping of the Atomic

Bomb

The United States Enters World War Two December 1941

• Pearl Harbor is bombed on December 7, 1941

• United States declares war on Japan December 8, 1941

Executive Order 9066• Presidential Executive

order issued by Franklin Roosevelt authorizing the Secretary of War to designate certain areas of the United States as exclusion zones from which “any or all persons may be excluded.”

• Soon, 110,00-120,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the West Coast were put into relocation camps

Who Is Interned?

• West Coast Residents (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona)– Only 1200-1500 Japanese Americans living

in Hawaii were interned, despite making up a third of the Hawaiian population

• Most were second or third generation Japanese-Americans

• 62% American citizens• 50% children

What Was Life Like in the Camps

• Families had two days to pack and could only bring what they could carry

• Families typically were able to stay together• Housed in barracks• Used communal areas of washing, laundry,

and eating• Property was edged with barbed wire, and

protected by armed guards• Camps were located in remote, desolate

areas

Causes of Internment

Racism Wartime Hysteria

Failure of Leadership

Economic Motives

Racism• There was deep racism in America in the 1940s…

– Jim Crow, Segregated Military, Immigration Quotas

• There was considerable anti-Japanese racism (particularly in California)– Japanese Exclusion League of California– Japanese immigrants denied the right to become naturalized

citizens (Takao Ozawa v. United States 1922)– Covenants against renting or selling homes to Asians were

common in California– Laws banning marriage between whites and Japanese– Segregated schools between white and Japanese Americans

• Myth of the “yellow peril”– Japanese immigrants were described as an invading horde

who lowered the standard of living for white workers– They were accused of being dirty, unhealthy, and unable to

assimilate

Bugs Bunny Cartoon

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtlcrIkIbI

Wartime Hysteria• False reports of spying and

sabotage by Japanese Americans, combined with racial prejudices, led to feelings of hate towards Japanese Americans following the attack at Pearl Harbor.

• A variety of false reports were printed in the media stating that Japanese-Americans aided at Pearl Harbor or were spying on Americans, etc.

• To the right, is a false story published in 1942

Failure of Leadership• Roosevelt ignored

reports from Naval Intelligence, the FBI, and other sources that there was no need for mass removal or incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry

• Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of internment in Korematsu v. United States 1944

Economic Motives• "We're charged with

wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons and we might as well be honest. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown men," wrote Frank J. Taylor in the Saturday Evening Post.

• Groups that competed with Japanese immigrant farmers and laborers lobbied for internment

The American Government’s Take on Japanese Internment

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OiPldKsM5w

Discussion

Boycott/Embargo of

Japan

Bombing of Pearl Harbor

Japanese Internment

Decision to Drop the

Atomic Bomb

Recall the following diagram…What is the role of Japanese Interment in this process? • How does it grow out of Pearl Harbor?• How might it contribute to the

decision to drop the atomic bomb?

Epilogue

• January 1945, internment is ended • Freed internees were given $25 and a

bus ticked to their former homes• In 1983 the United States government

issued a report which said that internment was unjust and militarily unjustified and had been motivated largely by racism

• In 1992, all living internees received a $20,000 reparation payment