seems ambiguous since there are no black and white differences between loyal and
disloyal. Also, ?The evil deeds of Hitler?s Germany were the deeds of bad men; the evil
deeds of Tojo and Hirohito?s Japan were the deeds of bad race? (Daniels 2, 34)
Because Germans are white, there are some good ones, but because the Japanese are not
white there are no good ones. Isn?t this what the above passage is saying. There was no
difference between the imperial strength of Germany and the imperial strength of Japan
at the time except the color of the people.
Why were the Japanese interned? Was it because of military necessity, the public
outcry for their internment, the lobbying of various politicians and pressure groups, or
was it prejudice? This paper contends that racism caused the Japanese in America to be
interned. The other more popular theories are the ?Military Necessity? theory, the
?Pressure Group? theory and the ?Politician? theory. We will see that none of these
theories hold true under scrutiny. The ?military necessity? theory is probably the most
widely know and most often preferred to be true. This theory is self-explanatory. It?s the
theory that the Japanese were interned because they were a threat to national security.
This just isn?t true. Numerous reports made by military and F.B.I. officials state that the
Japanese did not have the military capability to invade the west coast and there was
absolutely no proof of sabotage going on anywhere. On the very day the president signed
order 9066 a report made by a general staff officer stated that ?mass evacuation? was
unnecessary?(Daniels 47). Numerous other reports were submitted before the day order
9066 was signed but none of them were heeded. Why? Because the people that made the
decision to intern the Japanese let their racist fears control them.
The second most widely held theory is the ?Pressure Group? theory. This theory
holds that influential civilian groups such as the American Legion and many labor
organizations lobbied for the Japanese internment because of economic motives. It is true
that pressure groups lobbied for the internment because of economic motives but in
actuality, it was ?too little too late?. The groups were not large enough and did not have
consensus with their other chapters to be big and widespread enough to influence the
military. Also, many groups didn?t start to lobby for internment until after the decision to
intern the Japanese had already been made. This theory puts forth that there was an
organized effort to lobby for internment but, there was no organized effort. It was
splotchy and spread out at best. Although the pressure groups did ??provide a barometer
for prejudiced Army officials, confirming the receptivity of the public to anti-Japanese
measures (tenBroek 188).
The ?Politician? theory is the most easily discredited of them all. It is the theory
that some politicians, in order to look like leaders, picked up the cause to intern the
Japanese. Many politicians did pick up the cause to intern the Japanese but just like the
previous theory it was ?too little too late?. As the lines below will show, the activities of
public officials on the west coast before Feb. 14, 1942,
?were relatively, if not absolutely, insignificant. State, county, and city officials were not uniformly or even prominently outspoken for evacuation at a time when their views might have swayed the commanding general (tenBroek 200).
The commanding general, General DeWitt, had made the order to recommend
internment before most politicians had made any public statements concerning their
support for the internment. The recommendation for internment came from General
DeWitt and his staff. Not from pressure groups, or politicians or anyone else for that
matter. It comes down to the fact that:
The racism exhibited by the general and his staff was blatant and unmistakable, and clearly corresponded to (if it did not surpass) that of articulate public opinion along the Pacific Coast in the early months of the war (tenBroek 208)
It was not a military necessity to intern the Japanese so why did the Army see fit
to go through with it? It?s clearly because of a racist staff of officers. The people of the
west coast, and maybe even the Army, were nervous and scared of the ?yellow peril?.
They ended up striking out at the shadow of the problem, the Japanese, instead of the real
problem, their own fears and stereotypes, and by this blow they damaged not the enemy,
but their own Constitution and free way of life.
The Constitutional questions raised by the internment of the Japanese were many.
But the most important question isthis. Was the evacuation of persons of Japanese
ancestry from the west coast constitutional? In Korematsu vs.U.S., we hear from the
Supreme Court on whether the evacuation is Constitutional. The ruling was that although
prejudice based on race is unconstitutional, in the specific case of the Japanese
evacuation its was ruled as Constitutional because it was ??relevant to measures for our
national defense and for the successful prosecution of the war??(Myer 260). We see
here that the racism of the Army is justified by ?military necessity?, which is used over
and over again to describe the need for Japanese internment. But there was no military
necessity at the time of internment or any time during the war. Throughout the different
Supreme Court cases, the court supported the military?s decision of ?necessity? while
saying at the same time that the internment was unconstitutional ?at any other time?
because of its racism. It must be stated that although the U.S. won the Korematsu case,
some of the justices decided explicitly in favor of Korematsu because the evacuation was
in fact unconstitutional.
The case that addressed the actual internment of the Japanese in relocation centers
was the Endo case. Although Miss. Endo won the case because the authorization for
detention was not expressly given under the order that established the War Relocation
Authority, the Supreme Court never actually made a decision on the Constitutionality of
the internment of the Japanese. This seems to say that the highest court in the land was
afraid to rebuff the military. What does this say about the Supreme Court who is
supposed to be protectors of the people. Will the court lie down in front of the military in
the future when even more constitutional rights are at stake? Through its decisions, the
Supreme Court clearly circumvented the constitution in order to protect the military, as
an institution that would not directly violate the rights of its people under any
circumstances. Why would the military deprive the people who pay its wages, of their
Constitutional rights? The answer is military racism. This would not happen to white
people in America. The internment is just another example of the dominant portion of
society making decisions that are only based on maintaining their rule. The military was
afraid of what the Japanese people might do to sabotage strategic areas in the U.S. even
though there was no proof that anything like that would or could happen.
The Japanese internment during World War II was hailed by the A.C.L.U. as ?the
greatest deprivation of civil rights by government in this country since slavery?(James 3)
and that?s precisely what it was. The xenophobia shown by whites of the west coast dates
back to the establishment of California as the Bear Flag Republic and continued to show
itself through various anti-Oriental exclusion laws until the mid 1900?s. These
exclusionist policies culminated in the forced exile of almost a whole nation of Japanese
immigrants (most of them living on the west coast at the time) during W.W.II. The
internment was unconstitutional but defended by the Supreme Court as a ?military
necessity? although it was obviously a deprivation of civil rights. After the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, the west coast public was driven in to a ?state of war hysteria? through
pre-war conditioning by means of movies and books and later on through the use of
yellow journalism depicting Japanese Americans as a ?yellow peril?. This functioned to
demonize the Japanese, and make the public feel that they were disloyal as a race and not
on an individual level.
The general in charge of the Western Defense Command was General DeWitt,
who, even though there was no need to intern the Japanese, made the recommendation to
president Roosevelt to do so anyway. This is because of the military?s, and most of the
public?s prejudice against non-white foreigners at the time; which can be seen in the fact
that almost no persons of Italian or German descent were interned yet almost all
Japanese, American citizens or not, were interned. The public outcry for the internment
was practically only caused by the extensive amount of propaganda used against the
Japanese in the media, which shaped the anti-Japanese stereotypes that so many people
had at the time. The only theory that does not cave in on serious inquiry is that military
racism, which mirrored the public?s racism, was the cause of the internment. There was
no military necessity for the internment and the pressure groups and politicians at the
time were not organized and acted after the decision for internment had already been
made by the military. Because of the racism exhibited by the military, and the Supreme
Court?s defense of the internment, although unconstitutional, we see a precedent
developing which could render the Constitution only a formality to be side stepped in the
future in order for the military to get what it wants. This will be a serious issue to be
addressed during later internal conflicts.
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