Download The Treatment of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians

Aarti Kumar & Kallie Ochiai
Period 5

Yellow Peril
 Belief that the mass immigration of Asians
threatened white wages and standards of living
 Originated with the Chinese immigrants, but later
associated with the Japanese


Anti-Japanese sentiment among farmers who
had to compete against Japanese labor
Discrimination of Japanese increased after
the attack on Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941)
 Suspected as spies or threats to national security

After the attack on
Pearl Harbor, much
anti-Japanese
propaganda
surfaced in the U.S.



Issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on
February 19, 1942
Authorized military areas “from which any or all
persons may be excluded.”
Commenced the
round-up of 120,000
Japanese Americans to
one of ten internment
camps

Conditions
 Overcrowded and
unsanitary
 Hard to keep warm
 Food was rationed
 However, families were
generally kept together

Japanese Americans lost all rights as citizens
 No ownership rights
 No freedom of speech


Those who challenged the constitutionality of the
curfew and evacuation were imprisoned
Eventually, the government allowed internees to
leave camps if they enlisted in the U.S. Army
 442nd Regimental Combat team




Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
Defendants argued that their 5th amendment
rights were violated
Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S.
government in both cases

Denied the right to vote
 1931 - Japanese WWI veterans are the only
enfranchised Japanese Canadians
 1936 - Japanese Canadian Citizens League sent to
Ottawa to petition for the franchise; unsuccessful

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) kept
surveillance on the Japanese community

British Columbians blamed problems on
Japanese
 People felt that the Japanese were a threat to safety

War Measures Act (1941)
 Japanese language newspapers and schools are
closed
 P.C. 9760 - Mandatory registration of Japanese with
Registrar of Enemy Aliens (regardless of citizenship)
 P.C. 1486 - Empowered Minister of Justice to remove
any people from a designated protected zone


Prime Minister Mackenzie ordered that all
Japanese Canadians would be forcibly removed
from the Pacific to “safeguard the defenses.”
Men were separated from families
 Forced to work on crews building roads & railroads or
work on beet farms
Women, children, and elderly were sent to
inland camps
 Kept under detention until the end of the war
(unlike in the U.S.)



Families were forced to live in cramped
quarters with ten other families
Some camps didn’t have adequate resources



Stripped of possessions, both lands and
goods, to be sold at auctions
Canadian government took away all of the
Japanese fishing fleets
Forced to do manual labor
A Royal Canadian Navy officer
questions Japanese-Canadian
fisherman and confiscates their boat.
1.
Frede, Josh. "Canada's Response." Tainted: The Treatment of Japanese-Canadians during World
War Two.
Library and Archives Canada, 2011. Web. 04 Nov.2012.
<http://app.ufv.ca/fvhistory/studentsites/wwII/japanesecanadianswwII/canadasresponse.html>.
2.
Mercier, Laurie, and Leslie Wykoff. "Historical Overview." Japanese Americans in the Columbia
River
Basin. Web. 4 Nov 2012. <http://archive.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/projteam/>.
3.
"Reference Timeline." JapaneseCanadianHistory.net Timeline. Monkey Hill Communications, 2011. Web. 04
Nov. 2012. <http://www. japanesecanadianhistory.net/reference_timeline.htm>.
4.
Siasoco, Ricco V., and Shmuel Ross. "Japanese Relocation Centers." Japanese Internment in
War II.FactMonster.com. Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. Web. 04 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.factmonster.com/spot/internment1.html>.
5.
Shigekawa, Marlene. "POSTON CAMP UPDATES: RESTORATION PROJECT." World War II
Propaganda. 04 Sept. 2008. Web. 04 Nov. 2012.
<http://postonupdates.blogspot.com/2008/09/us-propaganda-film.html>.
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