Japanese-American Internment Camps: A Challenge to Democracy (Part 1)

1944 - Watch the full film: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/09/challenge-to-democracy-1944.html

A Challenge to Democracy was a 20 minute 1944 film produced by the War Relocation Authority. The film could be considered a companion piece or sequel to 1942's Japanese Relocation.

This film is more sober in its description of the events. It states that while many Japanese were loyal and in the armed forces, they didn't know what would happen in case of an attack. The film makes it clear that the Japanese Americans were forced from their circumstances, and that they were made to live in a rather barren relocation camp, which was surrounded by armed guards. The film states bluntly that the medicine available at the camp was the same as that of everybody else in war time—barely adequate.

More positive features of camp life are also shown, whatever their histocial accuracy may be: it shows the internees organizing a self government, schools, and places of worship, as well as contributing to the war effort though industry. It also shows that some families were allowed to leave the campif they have proven loyal enough.

Japanese American internment refers to the forcible relocation and internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans to housing facilities called "War Relocation Camps", in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally throughout the United States. Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast of the United States were all interned, whereas in Hawaii, where over 150,000 Japanese Americans composed nearly a third of that territory's population, an additional 1,200 to 1,800 Japanese Americans were interned. Of those interned, 62 percent were United States citizens.

President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones", from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders, while noting that the provisions that singled out people of Japanese ancestry were a separate issue outside the scope of the proceedings.

In 1988, Congress passed and 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". About $1.6 billion in reparations were later disbursed by the U.S. government to surviving internees and their heirs.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Japanese
• internment
• American
• World
• War
• II
• propaganda
• 1943
• film
• Abe
• Fortas
• action
• administration
• advisors
• alien
• property
• citizens
• anti-Japanese
• approved
• April
• army
• Attorney
• California
• citizenship
• committee
• Concentration
• Camps
• Congress
• custodian
• CWRIC
• Papers
• danger
• December
• decision
• defense
• DeWitt
• Dillon
• Myer
• disloyal
• draft
• Eisenhower
• Eleanor
• Roosevelt
• Emmons
• enemy
• aliens
• exclusion
• Executive
• Order
• 9066
• FDR
• FDRL

[Durgasinghni]

Rather than saying, "Oh look they had it so much better than some other community..." We should consider the patterns in human history, in human societies that scream a warning that horrible genocides will be a thing of the future since we seem to repeat the same blame and justification of our murderous human past.

[TheGloru2009]

Love the way they try to sugar coat the fact that they were prisoners.

[chriskimforlife]

@paulsviplist yeah its sounds really awesome.

[michael50694]

WOW this is a wonderful life compared to what the Jewish people had to go through

[viewer332]

compared to the native americans: they seemed to have had a better deal, huh?

[ExacavatoroftheWest]

@AnAxetoGrind The sad thing is that around 70% will make sure it happens again.

[jbranstetter04]

I'm not ashamed of this; I had nothing to do with it. I know for a fact that there were racists back then who wanted the people of Japanese decent out of the country, but there also where those who thought that they were a real threat to the country. Here is what a lot of people do not know. The Japanese government gave citizenship to anyone born to Japanese citizens, or nationals, no matter where they were born. So a lot of Japanese-Americans were Japanese citizens as well.

[paulsviplist]

Was life that good in that place?

[paulsviplist]

@AnAxetoGrind What about the new law called SB1070 and all the children that are in prison now just because mom and did did not have papers? And what about that big communist wall that they are building in Arizona?

[AnAxetoGrind]

There's a new group called Oathkeepers who have pledged to make sure that this never, ever happens again.

Check them out.