Yellow Peril, Prejudice and the Japanese Internment

The Japanese internment happened at a time in history that was ripe for paranoia against the Japanese people. The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the United States entered World War II. In 1942 a group of U.S. Army Officers began the process that would result in the internment of all Japanese Americans. Yellow peril already existed and was taken much further all the way to the internment of American citizens during World War II.

The hysteria seemed to be that the Japanese would take over the West Coast or were somehow communicating with Japanese naval fleets off the coast of California. It didn't matter that there had been no proof of Japanese espionage. In fact, the idea that there was no proof of wrongdoing seemed to fuel the fire in thinking that the planning was happening and eventually there would be wrongdoing. Secretary Henry L. Stimson favored "mass evacuation" while others like General Francis Biddle and J. Edgar Hoover thought that the mass evacuation of Japanese Americans was unnecessary. While this debate went on some of the more dangerous "enemy aliens" were being rounded up and held. All Japanese people had curfews and could only travel within a very limited distance from their homes. They had go get rid of all "contraband" items, which included anything electronic as well as any heirlooms from Japan. When Roosevelt sided with Stimson, it only took eight days for Executive Order 9066 to appear, mandating the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans (Robinson 3). Executive Order 9066 specifically stated that internees were to pack only what they could carry to remain in an undetermined location for the duration of World War II. "The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefore, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order" (Roosevelt).

What Executive Order 9066 mandated was that 100,000 Japanese Americans were evacuated from areas on the West Coast. They were classified as "enemy aliens." They were placed in "assembly centers" first so that they could be divided up and dispersed into various internment camps. Each family was sent to one of ten different camps located in the West and South. . These camps included: Tule Lake, CA; Manzanar, CA; Minidoka, ID; Heart Mountain, WY; Topaz, Utah; Poston, AZ; Gila River, AZ; Granada, CO; Jerome, AK, and Rowher, AK. Attempts were made to split up neighborhoods for fear of retaliation. The conditions of these camps were certainly less than ideal.

The whole Japanese internment was part of the larger picture of anti-oriental sentiment that existed on the West Coast as evidenced by laws like the Foreign Miner's Tax or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Chinese, even though they were recruited to this country to work railroads and in agriculture, were known as the "yellow peril" almost from the start. For example, in 1900 the San Francisco mayor had this to say about the Japanese: The Japanese are starting the same tide of immigration which we thought we had checked twenty years ago...Personally we have nothing against the Japanese, but as they will not assimilate with us and their social life is different from ours, let them keep a respectful distance" (Yancey 15). Newspapers helped increase the hysteria about yellow peril. They ran cartoon after cartoon that featured Chinese Americans taking over the United States. In 1905, one Western legislator was quoted as saying, "Japanese laborers, by reason of race habits, mode of living, disposition and general characteristics, are undesirable...They contribute nothing to the growth of the state. They add nothing to its wealth, and they are a blight on the prosperity of it, and a great and impeding danger to its welfare" (Daniels 11). These negative and hostile feelings perpetuated by the media are precisely the things that made America "ripe" for Japanese internment.

The Japanese were already excluded from public schools and faced other legislation against them. With the passage of Executive Order 9066, any person of Japanese ancestry was rounded up and held for the duration of World War II. In all, 120,000 Japanese people were interned with most of them being American citizens. Again, public sentiment and fear was high. Newspaper ran cartoons discussing the event that ruined the lives of many of the Japanese people. For example, the San Francisco News on March 6, 1942 ran a political cartoon with the caption reading "All Packed Up and Ready to Go". This cartoon featured Japanese people in a military vehicle crossing over a border called "out of harm's way" with the American flag in the backdrop (Rodger). Few dissenting voices rang because overall, the internment was supported by public opinion.

Life was basically one monotony after another although internees did all kinds of things to improve their environments from beginning educational courses to starting baseball leagues to planting gardens. They actually built baseball fields themselves and formed leagues to play baseball. They did everything they could to make their lives seem as normal as possible. They basically formed little cities inside the walls of these camps that functioned much like neighborhoods on the outside with their own beauty shops, produce stores, newspaper, etc.

After the war, the Japanese began being released gradually. However, the war ended on December 17, 19444, and it wasn't until the March 20, 1946 that the last internment camp in Tule Lake officially closed. The government was in no real hurry to close down these camps, and public sentiment against the Japanese was mounting. Many communities did not want to see a return of their Japanese population. Some internees were hopeful that they could reconnect with outside life in the same way they had before the war. Others were fearful that they were too old to start all over again. Others yet were bitter and disillusioned about the whole subject of internment and tired of being pushed around by the United States government. Delegates from all the internment camps came together and made suggestions for their re-integration into society. These recommendations included low interest loans, civil service jobs, re-instatement of business licenses, and the government trying to buy the property back. Unfortunately, the WRA ignored almost all of their suggestions. Instead, each family was given $50 (only $25 for individuals) and train fare back to the place from where they had been evacuated. "Most scholars now agree that their decision was not simply the product of wartime hysteria but reflected a long history of anti-Japanese hostility fueled by economic competition and racial stereotypes" (Murray 5).

What makes the Japanese internment experience unique were a few things. The biggest one is that American citizens were denied their civil liberties and interned against their will. Another is that public prejudice leading up to this event greatly swayed opinions as to what to do once Pearl Harbor was bombed. Knowing that the Japanese would not fight back, internment seemed like a safe thing to do. While no proof of any wrongdoing was ever found, these people endured the internment nonetheless.

Works Cited

Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps, U.S.A.: Japanese Americans and World War II. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.

DeWitt, J.L. Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942. Retrieved March 14, 2009 at http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/dewitt0.html

Murray, Alice Yang. What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? Retrieved March 14, 2009 at http://books.google.com/books?id=SgWT1sglrL0C&dq=japanese+internment&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

Roosevelt, Franklin. Executive Order 9066. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154

Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President.

Rodger. Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/editorial4.html

Yancey, Diane. The Internment of the Japanese. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001.