On the 7th of December in 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The following year, in the middle of February, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that allowed for the relocation of all those living in coastal Washington, Oregon, and California with Japanese ancestry. Those living on the West coast were relocated to desolate places far away from the Pacific Ocean and placed in camps with other Japanese Americans. There were a few reasons for the relocation of Japanese Americans in the middle of February of 1942 and up until 1945 when some were just barely beginning to be released. The reasons for their forced relocation away from the West coast were: negative racial and social attitudes towards them, followed by the
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Many people who had been born in America with their families residing there for a few decades did not feel too kindly to the Japanese emigrating to the United States in the large numbers that they did, especially since the Chinese had just been prohibited from entering the United States in search for jobs. The Japanese had began to emigrate to America─more often California, Oregon and Washington─in large numbers during the 1890’s and early 1900’s, many of them coming for job opportunities presented to them by American employers; the large numbers of emigrating Japanese was referred to as the “yellow peril”. With this influx of Japanese immigrants coming to America, nativists─those born and raised and white in the United States─felt that it was some sort of ‘invasion’ and feared its ‘consequences’, as said by the author of an article written in 1905, “If Americans were invading Japan as the Japanese are invading America, and absorbing Japanese industries as Japanese will absorb American industries, nothing could prevent the Japanese from reverting to their ancient policy of exclusion” (“Japanese cheap Labor...”, Page 6). So, a little less than forty years before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and putting aside the anti-Japanese sentiments, native-born Americans felt that with them coming into the United States, it would come to only put a strain on America’s prosperity. For someone who did not share the same aversion to Japanese Americans to understand this, the author of “Japanese cheap Labor...” switched the roles so someone who did not feel the ‘threat’ of the mass Japanese emigration could understand. Although the Japanese had become one of the most successful immigrant groups in America, a lot of native-born Americans did not like that they were there and prospering, and felt that they were taking their jobs (“Anti-Japanese movement”). Native-born Americans did not like that
Many people who had been born in America with their families residing there for a few decades did not feel too kindly to the Japanese emigrating to the United States in the large numbers that they did, especially since the Chinese had just been prohibited from entering the United States in search for jobs. The Japanese had began to emigrate to America─more often California, Oregon and Washington─in large numbers during the 1890’s and early 1900’s, many of them coming for job opportunities presented to them by American employers; the large numbers of emigrating Japanese was referred to as the “yellow peril”. With this influx of Japanese immigrants coming to America, nativists─those born and raised and white in the United States─felt that it was some sort of ‘invasion’ and feared its ‘consequences’, as said by the author of an article written in 1905, “If Americans were invading Japan as the Japanese are invading America, and absorbing Japanese industries as Japanese will absorb American industries, nothing could prevent the Japanese from reverting to their ancient policy of exclusion” (“Japanese cheap Labor...”, Page 6). So, a little less than forty years before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and putting aside the anti-Japanese sentiments, native-born Americans felt that with them coming into the United States, it would come to only put a strain on America’s prosperity. For someone who did not share the same aversion to Japanese Americans to understand this, the author of “Japanese cheap Labor...” switched the roles so someone who did not feel the ‘threat’ of the mass Japanese emigration could understand. Although the Japanese had become one of the most successful immigrant groups in America, a lot of native-born Americans did not like that they were there and prospering, and felt that they were taking their jobs (“Anti-Japanese movement”). Native-born Americans did not like that