Japanese Internment

3 Pages 821 Words

Right after the Japan’s sneak attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor fear spread throughout the country. Many feared for their loved ones now joining the Second World War, many feared for the economy, their lives and safety at the home front. The biggest concern with safety at the home front was another attack from Japan. Since we were now a war with Japan many believed that the Japanese living in the U.S were a potential danger. They feared that the Japanese here could help Japan attack the U.S. As the days progressed the fear of the U.S decided to put all Japanese born here or not in relocation camps. Men women and children were stripped of their rights as U.S citizens, lost all their belongings and put in relocation camps where military officials guarded them closely. More than 120,000 Japanese American and Japanese immigrants participated in the Japanese Internment.
May 16th, 1942, Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi was at the FBI office in Seattle Washington A few days earlier Gordon had ignored the military order stating that “all persons of Japanese ancestry” to register for evacuation to the sate fairground at Puyallup, south Seattle. From there they would be shipped to relocation camps in California and Arkansas. He was reminded he could face a year in prison for not cooperation Gordon still refused to register for evacuation, after they offered him one last chance to do so.
After being placed in the King County jail a police agent discovered in his briefcase a diary in which Gordon wrote how he had violated curfew orders that kept Japanese Americans off the street in the weeks before evacuation. The find was reported to the U.S attorney general, who quickly filed an additional criminal charge against Gordon for curfew violation. Gordon said he disobeyed the curfew because he “… received a lift- perhaps it is a release- when I consciously break the silly old curfew.”(70) He also said, “If I were to register and cooper...