A Wider Perspective: An Analysis of the Conventional and Revised Views of Japanese-American Internment/Relocation
Date
2012-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisors created Executive Order 9066, which designated “military zones” around the United States, and forced “enemy aliens” to relocate outside of these zones. This included all Japanese people within five hundred miles of the Pacific coast. President Roosevelt set up the War Relocation Board to organize temporary assembly centers, to build more permanent Internment/Relocation Camps, and to help
make arrangements for those people who wanted to work or go to school outside of the military zones. Since World War Two, the executive decision to relocate 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry has been criticized as racist and unnecessary. Recently, a revised school of thought, which defends the relocation as necessary for the protection of national security, has arisen to combat the conventional understanding of
Internment/Relocation. This project explores both the conventional and revised schools of thought, based on research from prominent experts in both fields, including Roger Daniels, Jerome T. Hagen, Roger McGrath, and Otis L. Graham.
Description
Keywords
Japanese-American Internment/Relocation camps, World War II, historical perspectives