Japanese Internment
And The Propaganda Surrounding It
In the beginning of the Japanese relocation in The United States, war propaganda films depicted Japanese people getting on trains willingly and even happily to go to their new "Home". Here it shows a family waving goodbye and holding an American Flag as they pull away from the station. This picture makes the trains seem nice and hospitiable, and it even looks like the family wants to be there, but the truth is not that at all.
This picture displays a mcuh different situation from the last. Here, a line of armed guards stands by while the Japanese board the train. Rather than looking like free people going on a train to a temporary new home as the American Gpvernment tried to portray, it looks more like prisoners marching to a train to take them to jail.
This picture was taken by the war relocation authority to demonstrate the living conditions of Japanese-Americans in the camps. Here it looks like they are in a very nice house with many nice things sucn as good funiture and china. In reality, the living in the camps was not nearly this nice, and as we can see in the picture below, many camps were much worse than this.
In contrast to the picture above, the living conditions for the Japanese were not nearly as good as the War Propaganda Committee made it seem. Here you can see hundreds of Japanese-Americans crammed into a very small area like animals. This picture shows the side of the relocation facilities that the government did not want to show people. This would be considered inhumane treatment for animals on their way to be slaughtered, and these people are just innocent American citizens who have done no wrong.