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Japan and America in WWII

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In February of 1942, during World War 2, President Roosevelt ordered the relocation of all Japanese-Americans. Over 127,000 citizens left their homes, jobs, and families and went to concentration camps throughout the western United States. Was this a wrong thing to do? Before we decide, it’s important we evaluate the background and the factors that led to this event. During this time, Americans had a lot of racist feelings toward the Japanese. It all started when people from Japan first started coming to Hawaii and the west coast in the late 1800’s. These people found work with the railroad and agriculture. After 1900, Japanese immigration increased and even more people were coming over and getting jobs, which made the Americans really scared that the Japanese would replace them, and they would lose their jobs. From that point on, the Japanese people faced a lot of discrimination, and in 1924, the United States even went as far as to stop the Japanese from coming to America. The tension between Japan and America was steadily increasing. Fast-forward a little over 15 years to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941. More than 3,500 people were killed/injured, 18 American ships and almost 300 American airplanes were either damaged or destroyed, and America had officially been brought into World War II. The people of America started to become very suspicious of those with Japanese descent living in America, scared that they were supporters of their mother country and of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was very sad that the Japanese-Americans were forced to go to concentration camps, but the United States didn’t want to take any chances. The Japanese pledged their loyalty to the United States, including in the LA Times a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor [Doc. 2], but with the United States officially at war with Japan, we wanted to be safe rather than sorry. While the Japanese living in America most likely were

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