The JAPANESE-AMERICAN INTERNMENT

From 1942 until 1946, the Japanese that lived in America were placed in internment camps designed to house them until the end of the war, World War II. These camps were set up for fear that the Japanese that lived in America had their allegiance pledged to Japan still and would fight for them instead of the United States. The thought was that they would try to sabotage structures in the United States.
The order came from the president himself, Franklin D. Roosevelt in executive order 9066. It stated that Japanese Americans were to be relocated to internment camps for the duration of the war. Two thirds of the relocated people were United States born citizens. The rest of the relocated people were their parents and grandparents. The executive order was backed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it was, “pressing public necessity.” The Japanese Americans were then forced out of their homes away from their families and friends, their jobs and their lives, and placed into these internment camps that were designed almost as prisons to house them for the duration of the war. They were treated as enemies to the very country that they lived in. Each family was given a little apartment or dorm style house for their entire family. Portable walls were available for them to put up if they wished. The houses were grouped together with a common dinning and washing area. Recreation was supplied to them in a recreation center, but they were not allowed to leave the camp. Also, the entire camp was surrounded by barbed wire and fencing. This was the equivalent to a P.O.W. camp that captured enemy soldiers were captured and placed in. The Japanese Americans were not enemies of war, they were merely ethnically classified American citizens that were placed in custody for fear they might be loyal to their native land. The United States government, under the Reagan administration later apologized for the decision made during the war.
I believe that the internment camps were not the right way to deal with the possible threat of Japanese sabotages. We are a free country, free to choice how we want to live. By forcing people, based on their ethnic background, internment camps is a slap in the face and goes directly against what this country is founded on. It also goes directly against what our Constitution states. It just shreds the Constitution just a bit. This action was illegal to force someone into what could be said as a prison for doing no crime, only the potential of doing a crime. We all have the potential to commit acts of violence and other such crimes. That doesn’t give anyone the right to lock someone up for a potential cause to protect others. By the United States government locking up the Japanese living in America that is doing more damage then what the government was trying to do in the first place. They just helped out the Japanese. The government was trying to protect its people, but two thirds of the people they locked up were born American citizens. They were hurting their own people more then they were protecting them. It was a miscalculation to solve a problem. There are other methods in which the lands of the United States could have been protected from possible Japanese internal attacks. Other methods should have been exploited and this should have been a last resort, or not even an option to use. We are a land of innocent until proven guilty, this was a violation of this cause. These Japanese – American citizens were assumed guilty just on their race and not for who they really were, which was Americans.