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Japanese Culture: The Impact Of America's Attack On Pearl Harbor

Decent Essays

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese Navy bombed and ultimately destroyed the United States Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This sneak attack by the Japanese bombers drug the United States into WWII. The attack caused panic and hysteria throughout the United States, because this was the first attack against Americans, and on their own soil. Following the attack, about 1,500 Japanese suspects were gathered by American security to be arrested. Pressure from anti-Japanese media propaganda, local patriotic groups, and politicians requested for removal of all Japanese Americans. On February 19, 1942, then President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, giving authorization to the military to designate “military areas” where “any or all persons may be excluded”. Any being from Japanese heritage was put in an internment camp in western inland United States. When being evacuated, humans of Japanese heritage lost all property and possessions to …show more content…

Japanese culture was also banned in the camps. They couldn’t read or write in Japanese or create any art relating to Japan. Relating to two aspects of the First Amendment, that violated free speech and the the right to assemble, in the internment camps the Japanese were under a “...prohibition of using the Japanese language in public meetings” (San Francisco State University). When the Japanese would petition within the camps, “The War Relocation Authority administration labeled them as ‘troublemakers’ and sent them to isolation camps,” (San Francisco State University). While Japanese citizens were incarcerated, many of their privileges in the Bill of Rights were violated by the United States government. Fred Korematsu, a civil rights activist, sued the United States for infringing upon his guaranteed privileges in the Bill of

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