Japanese Internment in America
December 8th, 1941
On December 7th, Pearl Harbor laid in ruin at the hands of a Japanese suprise attack. The next day, President Roosevelt declared war against the nation of Japan. Within a matter of hours, the nation was transformed. Soon afterwards, Japanese Americans were rounded up from their homes, and moved to internment camps to avoid "supplying the Japanese government with information". With this, the prosecution of the loyal Americans began and their lives changed forever.
Overnight, Japanese citizens across America were villified.
This striking page from an early issue of Life magazine showed Americans how they could distinguish the allied Chinese from their mortal enemy, the Japanese. They claim innocent Chinese victims have been hurt by attacks against the Japanese. So, what do you do? You tell your citizens, in a very straight forward way, how to distinguish the Japanese. You don't tell them, "lets not attack the Japanese," they teach citizens to attack Japanese Americans more accurately!
Then, they were transported to internment camps.
Although this propaganda vilified Japanese Americans, it didn't show the full truth.
This photo above shows the untold story. The people featured are Japanese Americans fighting for the United States in World War II.
Japanese Americans were loyal to America, contrary to popular belief.
This photo shows a shop owned by a Japanese American in Berkeley, California protesting against the internment of the Japanese. They were Americans like everyone else.