Why were the Japanese American's put in camps during WW2?

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Captain Falcon

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What was the reasoning behind it? Why weren't the Italian Americans or the German Americans? I know some were but the number was so small it was also no existent. So why the Japanese?
 
The Japanese that were interned in detention camps were duel citizens with Japan. Many of them were proven spies and saboteurs. People today don't understand how close we came to losing the war against the genocidal armies of the Empire of Japan. Until the battle of Midway we had lost every engagement against them, and even winning that battle was a fluke. Sometimes survival is better than political correctness.
 
My mother-in-law and father-in-law, Japanese Americans, were both interned at Topaz, Utah during the war.

The explanation was that it was for THEIR protection and to prevent possible sabotage on the West Coast.

The vast majority of the more than 100,000 who were imprisoned were American citizens whose rights were violated, and who were paid $20,000 in reparations in 1986 by the United States government.

Also, a SMALL number of Italian and German foreign nationals WERE interned on New York during the war.

P.S. MANY Japanese Americans volunteered to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. They fought in Euorpe, and they were the most highly decorated combat unit in WWII.

FACT. CHECK IT. "GO FOR BROKE!"
 
The Japanese were responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Concentration camps/dentention camps/happy camps, call it whatever you please. They were US citizens who's rights were 100% violated..and they did NOT volunteer to go.
 
I was taught it was for their own protection after they bombed Pearl Harbor, because private citizens might have aced out their resentments toward them as being personally responsible.
However, I don't know how they were treated in those camps.
 
Nice whitewash of history, telecote. It wasn't for their own protection, it was because they were seen as possible enemies of the U.S. If it was for their "protection", why were their business taken/shut down, houses taken, etc. May have been the party line but no one believed it - they knew damn well what was happening and approved of it.

It was wrong then and it's wrong now in Gitmo.
 
1. Because even during that time of great progressivism, our countrymen were as racist as all hell.

I don't really buy that entirely.

2. The Japanese were not nearly as well integrated into our society. It was less plausible that second generation Americans would turn subversive than Asian peoples against whom we had restrictive quotas until 1965.

It wasn't right, but it is at least understandable, even if amazingly poorly executed.
 
Some cultures get Americanized, some don't. Seriously.....the facts are proven.

The more 'China towns' meaning keeping separate from realistic society, the more the people keep themselves separate, the more they don't know America.
 
Because there was such an anti-Japanese sentiment after the Pearl Harbor bombing that the Japanese Americans were put in protective custody.

I realize the conditions in the camps were not anywhere close to anything you'd call acceptable, but it kept them alive and relatively safer than they would have been on their own at the time.

EDIT: Thumb me down for being truthful. I love it. It's history, man. You can't change it by thumbing me down.
 
The Japanese stuck out and were easily identified ... we've always been a racist country. In time of war we will lock up or separate our own citizens ... Listen to how people speak of arabs and muslims ... they stick out too.
Germans and Italians just blended in during ww2.
 
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the anti Japanese feelings were very great towards them. The others were not as easy to identify because they looked white sorry to say but it was true. War does bad things to a lot of people and it is too bad... John Lennon wanted us to give peace a chance why not try it on for a while?
 
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