Japanese American Internment camps and the hypocritical American values.

Javiera Benavides
American History II Mrs. Hitz
September 8, 2014

At the beginning of World War II, the Nazi Antisemitism took the power of Germany and imposed laws against frosty Jews. For instance, they were stripped from their citizenship, civil and economics rights. Then in 1933 the Nazi party began to send Jews to Concentration camps, where they were forced to engage in manual labor and lived in miserable conditions. At the same time the United States government was afraid of their Japanese American civilians because the Pearl Harbor attack. In 1941, the North America navel base Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy, bringing paranoia to the country and also the entry of the United States into the war. Consequently, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made the unjustly decision to send Japanese Americans civilians to such horrible living arrangements against their freedom.
We were horrified with the inhuman things that were happening in the Concentration camps, but something different although similar and against American values was occurring in North America “the Japanese American Internment camps”. There were some similarities between the last ones, for example, the Jews were forced to leave their homes and live in unsanitary conditions. In the same way the Japanese Americans were relocated from their homes to “cities” in the desert, leaving their houses, their facilities and their lives behind them.“The Japanese Americans weren’t given a lot of time to pack, sell, or store their things. Families were allowed to take only what they could carry. Some families were lucky enough to have neighbors or friends to care for their things. Others had to leave behind family pets, special toys, and many memories.”1. In Germany, the Nazi party stripped from the Jews, their citizenship, their civil and economics rights in comparison, at United States some citizens were excluded from the society, treated like “aliens” and also not being treated as Americans or neither Japaneses. They used to be Americans, regular civilians, in charged of a business, the Japanese Americans were not involved with what was happening in the world besides the paranoia from the United States and the govern ment changed everything, under these circumstances they weren't anymore an equal “American citizen” .“Well, I'd just come home from church. And then we kept hearing, “Pearl Harbor was bombed, Pearl Harbor was bombed.” I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was. My geography was not that sophisticated. I had no idea, and my father said, “Uh-oh, there's going to be trouble.” And I said, “Well, how come?” He said, “Well, Japan just bombed Pearl Harbor.” And, he says, “We're at war with Japan.” But, I thought, “Why should it bother me?” You know, “I'm an American.” And then he said, “You know, we are aliens.” My parents... “We don't have the citizenship, so they're gonna' do something, we'll probably get taken away.” [...] then when I went back to school that following morning, you know, December 8th, one of the teachers said, “You people bombed Pearl Harbor.” And I'm going, “My people?” All of a sudden my Japaneses became very aware to me. I no longer felt I'm an equal American, that I felt kind of threatened and nervous about it”2. The horrific conditions of the Concentration camps can not be comparable with the situation in the Interments camps, but also the life in there wasn't wonderful neither; here a description from a Japanese American about his life in a Internment camp “It was very, very dusty. The dust was powdery fine and if I recall, it was about 3 or 4 inches deep. So every time you take a step there was just a puff of smoke, I mean of dust, and if you had even the slightest breeze... wow, you're in like a fog. And when you go to the mess hall to eat, of course when you chew the food, you can feel the grit of the