1. Japanese - American Racism

13. Write this down Japan attacked Pearl Harbor – Dec 7th, 1941
US declared war with the Japanese on Dec 8th, 1941
What to do with Japanese living in the country?

15. Write this down Navy Secretary Frank Knox
“recommended the internment of all Japanese aliens in Hawaii”
158,000 Japanese Americans in Hawaii

16. Write this down General Delos Emmons
“While we were attacked by a ruthless enemy…. this is America and we must do things the American way”
Fought against internment of the Japanese in Hawaii

17. Write this down
The Japanese were 90 percent of the workforce in Hawaii
Thanks to General Emmons – 158,000 Japanese Americans did not become victims of internment

18. Dr. Seuss

23. Write this down 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast
FDR asked for research on what to do with Japanese Americans

24. Write this down Munson Report: November, 1941
Curtis Munson was sent by FDR to research the Japanese problem on the west coast

25. Document 1
What did the Munson Report state?

26. Write this down J. Edgar Hoover – Director of the FBI
All suspected enemies were already in custody
“mass internment of the Japanese would not be justified”

27. Write this down Francis Biddle – Attorney General of the United States
On Feb 7th, 1942 in a lunch with FDR said, “there were no reasons for mass evacuation”

28. Write this down February 19th, 1942
FDR signed Executive Order 9066 – created the west coast as “military zone” and allowed for the deportation of all Japanese Americans
Germans and Italians were not included

29. Why?

30. Write this down General John L. Dewitt
“We are at war and I have no confidence in the Japanese”
“A Jap is a Jap is a Jap”

31. Write this down
“The Japanese race is an enemy race….the generations of Japanese born in the United States racial strains are undiluted…..”
“over 112,000 potential enemies are at large today”

32. Why?
Why Japanese and not Germans or Italians?

33. Document 2 Harry Paxton Howard, 1942
“Americans in Concentration Camps”

49. Write this down Fred Korematsu
At 23, he refused to go to the internment camps
He was arrested and convicted of “defying the governments order”

50. Write this down Korematsu v. United States (1944)
Fred took his case to the Supreme Court to defend his rights as an American citizen

51. Document 3 The Korematsu Supreme Court Ruling
What did the Supreme Court decide?
Why?

52. Write this down After the war,
Japanese Americans started to return back home only to find their homes and businesses taken

54. Write this down
1988 – Ronald Reagan issues HR 442 into law, apologizing for the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans
Reparation payments of $20,000 to each person incarcerated

55. Write this down January 30th, 2010
California passed “Fred Korematsu Day”
First day named after an Asian-American in US History

56. One last thing….
After 9/11,
Korematsu said, “the US government should not let the same thing happen to the people of Middle Eastern descent as what happened to Japansese-Americans”

57. "No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy."

59. DBQ 5.1
Driving Question:
Why were Japanese-Americans interned during World War II ?