7.+Japanese+Internment+(Issei+and+Nisei)

Bailey Krasovec March 18, 2009 Japanese Internment Camps  This is a time capsule. It is the year 1944; my name is Sue and I am a Japanese-American teenager writing to whoever finds this. My family and I have been living in an Arizona internment camp for two years now. My mother, father, grandma and I used to live in California. We were happy there; but in 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Hawaii, leaving ever yellow skinned, Asian descendent as a possible spy, or threat to America. My family is American; we have lived here for three generations and have never even been to Japan! However, no one trusts people of my heritage. Before we came here we were accused of sabotage, and even poisoning vegetables. The media started to make up false and ugly stories targeting Japanese heritage. (The Americans) So on February 19, 1942, soon after the beginning of World War II, [|President Roosevelt] signed an evacuation order that began the round-up of 11 0,000 Americans of Japanese heritag e to one of 10 internment camps, officia lly called "relocation centers”. These camps were located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. (Infoplease 1) The war department also ordered Japanese Americans from Hawaii, but Hawaii’s military governor General Delos Emmons resisted since thirty-seven percent of Hawaii is made up of Japanese. They say the islands economy would have died without the Japs. But finally Hawaii was forced to send 1,444 Japanese Hawaiians to the camps. That’s one percent of Hawaii’s Japanese population. (The Americans) So nearly 110,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes, leave their jobs and perfectly fine lives to live in these camps even president Roosevelt refers to as concentration camps. They say half of the “internees” are children! How can they accuse children? Mind you, we were brought here without trials or any factual basis. We were sent to these prisons solely under the circumstances of our Japanese culture. (Weglyn 1) So my family and I have been living here for two years. The camp is overcrowded, remote, and surrounded by armored guards and barbed wire. (Weglyn 1) I hate the barbed wire… We live in such poor conditions too, sleeping in barracks, without plumbing or any way to do the cooking. We eat our food in the crowded mess hall; it’s about forty-eight cents per person to eat, and we don’t get much. It’s so cold here too. Coal is hard to come by, so we all sleep close together under as many blankets as we are given. (Infoplease 1) We feel like animals… but at least we have each other. In many cases family members are separated and put into different camps. (Infoplease 1) Thank god that didn’t happen to us. It’s terrible here even with loved ones! Thousands of incarcerated Japanese have already died in these ten camps. People drop everyday from the terrible medical care and the emotional stress we all endure day after day here behind these fences. Several from our camp were killed by the guards for resisting orders. (Weglyn 1) They don’t like it if we step out of their lines. I hope we don’t stay here forever.


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Work Cited "Japanese Internment in World War II." Infoplease. 2000–2007 Pearson Education, 18 Mar. 2009 . Weglyn, Michi. " Years of Infamy." __Internment History.__ 1999. 18 Mar. 2009 [] __ The Americans __. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. 2005