Japanese Internment - PowerPoint Presentation

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Japanese Internment

1) Just 10 weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the War Department to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones” where citizens could be forcibly removed. It was carefully worded and made no specific reference to Japanese-Americans, but the intention of the order became clear when military officials were announced that all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast would be relocated to internment camps for the duration of the war. Slide2
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Japanese Internment

4) The relocation was conducted during the Spring and Summer of 1942. By September, over 110,000 Japanese-Americans had been detained in 10 hastily built internment camps. The structures were so cheaply constructed, that Milton Eisenhower, the National Director of the War Relocation Authority told the Senate, that “frankly, if [they] stand up for the duration [of the war] we are going to be lucky.”

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Japanese Internment Slide8

Japanese Internment

7) In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." Over $1.6 billion in reparations granted $20,000 to each Japanese American that suffered internment or were heirs of those who had.Slide9

The 442nd

Nisei Regiment 1) Keeping in line with internment policies, the military initially banned the service of Japanese-American citizens. However, pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Japanese American Citizens’ League convinced the Roosevelt Administration to form a combat team of loyal American citizens of Japanese descent. Slide10
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The 442nd

Nisei Regiment 4) The Nisei Regiment may have reflected the Army’s unfortunate segregation policy, but the unit’s collective desire to demonstrate their loyalty likely motivated uncommon sacrifice and valor on the battlefield. During the course of fighting in North Africa, the Italian Front, southern France, and Germany, the 442nd became the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces. They earned 21 Congressional Medals of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 560 Silver Stars, 4,000 Bronze Stars, and an astonishing 9,486 Purple Hearts. Slide13

Minority Participation

A) Latinos: Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Hispanics were the only significant minority group(s) that were integrated in military units alongside Caucasians (whites). Because of the domestic labor shortage, a large number of Mexican-Americans were also permitted to temporarily enter the United States through the new “Bracero Program” to fill jobs in agriculture and industry.

Guy Louis

Gabaldon

– Navy Cross at Saipan

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Braceros being fingerprintedSlide15
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Minority Participation

B) African-Americans: Despite the NAACP declaration that “a Jim Crow army cannot fight for a free world,” the army remained segregated during World War II. Black units were initially barred from frontline combat and they were often forced to perform menial tasks like working in mess halls and loading docks. Increased pressure from the NAACP along with the strong encouragement of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the President ordered the War Department to create more opportunities for African-American servicemen in combat units like the Tuskegee Airmen (332nd

Fighter Group) and the Black Panther Tank Corps (761st Tank Regiment). Black women were also accepted as nurses for the first time in U.S. history.Slide17

Minority Participation

C) Native-Americans: Various Native-American tribes were specifically recruited by the military because their unique languages could be used for secret military transmissions. These aboriginal languages were exclusively oral with no written text and they were only spoken by Native Americans isolated on reservations within the U.S. interior. Axis codes could be broken by skilled cryptographers using complex mathematical models whereas U.S. code talkers could only be deciphered by fellow Native-Americans. Slide18

Minority Participation

1) Comanche: The Comanche served as code-talkers for the invasion of Normandy and throughout the European theatre. They simply used a substation method of words in their language to stand for military terms in English. For example, the Comanche code word for tank was “turtle,” bomber was “pregnant airplane,” and Hitler was “crazy white man

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Minority Participation

2) Navajo: The Navajo of the American Southwest served as code talkers with the Marines in the Pacific Theatre of War. They not only developed a code that was undecipherable to the Japanese, but they could transmit and decode messages in mere seconds. In the battle for Iwo Jima they coded over 800 transmissions with perfect accuracy. Major Howard Connor of the 5th Marine Division later stated, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." Slide21

Code Talkers Monument at Window Rock, Arizona on the Navajo ReservationSlide22

Women

2) The absence of so many men on the home front created a severe labor shortage that opened jobs to African-Americans from the rural South, Bracero workers from Mexico, and women from across the nation. More than eight million women took jobs outside of the home during World War II and a significant minority of them entered the defense industries. Slide23

Women

3) “Rosie the Riveter” was a fictional character that came to personify the revolutionary shift of women into traditionally-male industrial labor. The name first appeared in a wartime song about women workers, but it was soon associated with popular illustrations like the “We Can Do It!” propaganda poster and Norman Rockwell’s “Rosie” cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Slide24
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War Industries

1) The lingering unemployment of the Great Depression was completely eliminated by war mobilization and military conscription. Many industries had to completely retool their manufacturing process to produce the implements of war. For example, the U.S. manufactured over 3 million automobiles in 1941 before the December attack on Pearl Harbor – only 139 more were produced during the War because General Motors and Ford adapted their assembly lines for Army jeeps and Sherman tanks instead. Slide29
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Propaganda and the home front

1) Propaganda is a biased form of communication that is intended to influence people’s thoughts and actions. It often distorts or exaggerates the truth in order to achieve its desired result. Propaganda can range from speeches and pamphlets to political cartoons and films. Propaganda and fear were the cornerstones of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s. Slide33
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Propaganda and the home front

3) Propaganda was utilized with frightening efficiency in Germany to wreak devastation and ethnic genocide. However, propaganda does not always have to have such a sinister end. For example, the United States employed less exaggeratory means of propaganda to build support for the war effort. Despite our noble intentions, caricatures of the enemy often exploited racial stereotypes and depicted all Germans as barbarians and the Japanese as squinting, buck-toothed butchers. Slide37
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‘The Sowers’ by Thomas Hart Benton, 1942Slide53
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War Bonds and Income Taxes

1) The Second World War would cost the United States a staggering $321 billion dollars – an amount twice as much as all federal spending since 1776. The national debt skyrocketed 500% from $49 billion in 1941 to over $259 billion by 1945. However, war production jump started the economy and stimulated unprecedented growth. For example, the Gross National Product (GNP) doubled during the war years and overtime pay greatly increased the personal income of American citizens. Slide65

War Bonds and Income Taxes

3) Approximately half of the war was paid for through the sale of government-issued War Bonds from the U.S. Treasury. Citizens could purchase a bond for $18.75 and the federal government would guarantee its maturity to $25 over a span of 10 years. While this wasn’t a very high-yield investment (merely 2.9% interest), this gave citizens on the home front an opportunity to directly contribute to the war effort. Slide66

Rationing

1) Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia cut off the sources of 97% of America’s supply of rubber while German U-Boats threatened our supply of oil by attacking U.S. tankers sailing from the Middle East. The overwhelming demands of fighting abroad compelled the government to forcibly ration goods deemed essential to the war effort. Slide67

Rationing

2) Items like gas, rubber, meat, sugar, coffee, flour, and butter were all rationed to ensure that these supplies could be utilized on the war front. Americans were issued ration stamp books to regulate purchases of these goods and to prevent hoarding. This forced Americans to change their habits and adapt their recipes to account for shortages. For example, “Spam” potted meat became a popular alternative to beef while “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese” could serve in place of dairy. Slide68
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Censorship

1) The federal government established the Office of Censorship to regulate international communication in order to prevent sensitive information from falling into enemy hands. Military censors read all mail to and from the front and removed any references to sensitive information like location, troop movements, strategy, etc. Many letters from the soldiers would have blacked out sections that provided too much detail to their loved ones back home. Slide70
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Censorship

2) Domestic censorship was purely voluntary and the federal government established a “Code of Censorship” for the news media to self-enforce. When the Office of Censorship helped the media understand that certain information could aid the enemy and endanger the lives of American troops, journalists willfully censored their reporting in deference to the war effort. For example, a reporter learned of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, but they suppressed the story until after the weapon was dropped on Hiroshima in August of 1945.