Japanese Internment Project

Mrs. Mackinson   
ALC II - NCHWS

Using some or all of the hotlisted sites and Google images, you will be embarking on a little research quest.

You will answer the attached questions.

In a group of three, you will create a Power Point presentation that relates to one aspect of the Japanese culture or Japanese internment and discrimination. Your presentation must include at least 10 clear photos/images, 5 pertinent vocabulary words for your topic, an explanation of your graphics and the details of your subject. You will present this to the class.

Topics are first come, first serve. Your choices are: Emperor Hirohito, Shintoism, Executive Order 9066, Japanese Immigration to America, Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, Other Japanese Attacks and Fears of Japanese Attack, German and Italian Internment, Japanese American Soldiers in WWII.

You will write a 10-15 sentence journal reflecting on your impression of and feelings about the Japanese internment? What were you surprised to discover?
 

Pre-War Overview:

What are some of the injustices that Japanese Americans faced before internment?

Imagine that you are an American citizen growing up in the 1930s, born in California, to Japanese immigrant parents. How are the opportunities and choices available to you -- in areas such as schools, jobs and residence -- different from your Caucasian friends? How different or similar to your friends who are African American, Hispanic, Native American or other minority group?

Pearl Harbor
How did Japanese Americans feel about the bombing of Pearl Harbor

Why do you think the Government ignored and suppressed their own findings that Japanese Americans posed no military threat?

 FBI Raids
What impact did the FBI raids have on some Japanese American families?

Executive Order 9066
How did our leaders arrive at the decision to remove and incarcerate Japanese Americans?

Quoting a line from Executive Order 9066, summarize its contents.

Mass Removal
Why were Japanese Americans on the West Coast removed and incarcerated, whereas Japanese Americans in Hawaii, despite the Pearl Harbor bombing, were not interned?

 Japanese Latin Americans
How could Japanese living in Latin America be caught in the web of internment?

Temporary Detention Centers
Were Japanese Americans given adequate care and accommodations as they were rounded up? Were they given assurances and clear information on what the future held for them? 

Permanent WRA Camps
Discuss the claim by the U.S. Government that the camps were for the protection of Japanese Americans. Were the barbed wire fences and guard towers meant to keep vigilantes out or Japanese American inmates in?

Camp Life
Were the camps "resettlement communities," or prisons? What’s the difference between the two?

Did the War Relocation Authority take measures to protect family life and privacy?

Questions of Loyalty
How did Japanese Americans respond after being incarcerated without due process of law, to questions asking them whether or not they were unquestioningly loyal to this country?

Court Challenges
What was the basis the Supreme Court used to rule against legal challenges of the exclusion and curfew orders? Did the War and Justice Departments present to the Court all the facts and evidence available to them regarding the loyalty of Japanese Americans and any military necessity?

End of Exclusion
How did the U.S. Government prepare and assist Japanese Americans’ efforts to rejoin American society?

Postwar Resettlement
After being released from the camps, what did ex-internees face on the other side of barbed wire? How did their homes, employment, family life and communities change after the war and end of internment?

Compare the Japanese American internment and resettlement experience with the social stigma, trauma and displacement experienced by other communities (e.g. refugees from war torn nations, new immigrants, homelessness).

Empowerment
Why was it significant for Japanese Americans to seek political office? What difference did it make for this community and others? What were some of the reasons that inspired and compelled individual Japanese Americans to commit themselves to public service?

 Civil Rights Movement
How did the civil rights struggles of African Americans, women and others affect Japanese Americans’ view of their own history, particularly the World War II internment?

Court Victories
What did the coram nobis cases discover, nearly forty years after the camps? Is it ever too late to pursue justice?

Remembrance
Why is it important for a community and society at large, to remember its past errors? What are some ways that the Japanese American community remember the internment? What are some ways that the Japanese American community commemorates the internment?

Can it Happen Again?
With an awareness of the history and lessons of the Japanese American internment, what can we do to ensure that such an injustice is not repeated, for any group of people?

Your Reaction:

What are five facts that you found particularly interesting or shocking?
 

SIRS Decades: Japanese American Interment Resources

Japanese American Internment

Children of the Camps by PBS

Executive Order 9066

What led to the internment of Japanese civilians in the western U.S., how was the plan carried out and why? 

Japanese Internment Camps

Japanese living in America were rounded up and sent to internment camps, where they lived in barracks.  These were not spies, collaborationists, or sympathizers; they were Americans. What were the conditions in the camps?  What did the people do while they were imprisoned?

Shintoism

Dominant religious philosophy in Japan before and during World War II.  It believed the emperor divine, and was instrumental in the Japanese battle tactics and philosophy of war.

Emperor Hirohito

Japanese people believed Hirohito was a god.  What role did he play in the decision to attack the United States?  What was his function during World War II?  What happened to him at the end of the war?

Kamikaze

“The divine wind” strategy to turn the tide of battle in the Pacific war.  Where did this idea originate?  Why were these young men willing to crash their planes into United States naval vessels and die?

Japanese Immigration to America

Japanese people began immigrating long before World War II.  Why did these people move to America?  How did they survive once they arrived?  How did they contribute to their new homeland?

Japanese attacks on American West Coast

 Submarine attacks and aerial attacks were feared by the civilian and military populations of the West Coast.  How real were those fears?  What types of attacks did the Japanese actually launch?  Were they successful?

The Japanese Balloon Bomb Attack at Alturas

Women in WW II

With most of the men fighting overseas, women’s role in society changed.  They weren’t simply housewives, but factory workers, pilots, nurses, and served their country in many ways unheard of  in pre-WW II America.

With raw materials and processed goods fueling the war effort, many items at home were rationed, such as rubber, gum, tobacco, and food items.  How did people stretch their rationed items and still feed and clothe their families?

Not only were the Japanese rounded up and sent to internment camps, but German-Americans and Italian Americans also were imprisoned.  Why?  These were American citizens.