Term Paper on "Executive Order 9066 Current Debates"

Term Paper 10 pages (3109 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Executive Order 9066

Current debates in the United States include sensitive topics like the death penalty, reproductive rights controversies about abortion, and racial disputes about discrimination and profiling. These debates become highly heated, sparking lawsuits, criminal charges, and even violent. Even in the most polemical debates, however, none from any side would suggest that the best way to deal with the other side would be to completely eliminate the opposing side. Death penalty advocates do not suggest that all people who favor the death penalty should be put to death, or removed from the country. When an election is close and spirited, as the past few presidential elections have been, the winning side does not suggest that all citizens who voted for their opponent be punished or held captive until their political party is back in power.

Such scenarios seem ridiculous, even laughable. However, it was not so very long ago that fear of a foreign enemy led the United States to restrict the activities and movements of its own citizens. Imagine if, in today's war on terror, the government attempted to sort out terrorists by jailing every American of Arab descent, since most anti-American terrorism has been perpetrated by individuals of Arab heritage. Such a "solution" is not only antithetical to American ideals, but it seems a poor method of detecting terrorists based simply on their racial grouping. It seems even more unlikely that such an event would be instigated by one individual -- the chief executive-as opposed to being implemented through the regular channels necessary to create such an all-encompassing law, namely, a reasoned and fair debate in the United States Congress, followed by informed examination of the issue by the public, and finally, an approval or veto by the president.

That very scenario did happen in the United States, however, and not hundreds of years ago. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing "a series of events...[that] gave broad authority to the military to secure the borders of the United States and to create military zones from which individuals, citizens, and aliens alike, could be removed," (Tateishi and Yoshino 2000, p. 10). Although these words might be interpreted innocuously-secure borders and military zones sound like fairly reasonable goals for a sovereign nation; in fact, they sound like a good national security strategy-at the time of their writ, they were utilized to separate Japanese-American citizens from the nation as a whole, as a method of defense in World War II.

This essay will examine the events leading up to, surrounding, and following the issuance of Executive Order 9066. The fear of Japanese in the United States prior to and during World War II will be explained, followed by the rationale for discrimination against these individuals by the government. Conditions in the internment camps into which Japanese-Americans were forced will be examined, relying heavily on first-person accounts from survivors of the internment camps.

To begin, what made the United States so fearful of Japanese-Americans in the first place? The first answer to many who examine this question is the attack on Pear Harbor, but that is not the entire story-fear and discrimination against Japanese-Americans had existed in the United States for decades at the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Scholars wrote articles about the inability of Japanese-Americans to assimilate, asserting that although these individuals became citizens by renouncing their homeland, or even if they were born in the United States, about how the Japanese culture of "Emperor worship" would prevent them from becoming loyal citizens (McClatchey 1991, p. 83).

This particular author feared Japanese non-assimilation because of the religious, cultural, and even racial tendencies which made them more sympathetic to the Japanese government (ibid., p. 82). This author cited this inability to assimilate as a potential future threat to the United States posed by this group of non-Americans in its midst; he obviously feared the consequences of hosting a group of individuals whom he perceived as unwilling to become a functioning part of America. Other sources demonstrate similar fears of the Japanese-American: the San Francisco Chronicle frightened and biased readers with headlines such as "Japanese a Menace to American Women;"The Yellow Peril-How Japanese Crowd Out the White Race;"Brown Men an evil in the Public Schools;"Brown Artisans Steal Brains of Whites;"Crime and Poverty go Hand in Hand with Asiatic Labor," (quoted in Daniels 1988, p. 166).

This seemingly innate fear of the Japanese as the "other" in western America, specifically the Pacific coastal region, was a powder keg of racial tension and fear during the early twentieth century. The spark which touched it off was the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese troops on December 7, 1941. The well-voiced fears of the "Yellow Peril" had been proven correct, it appeared-not only were Japanese difficult to assimilate, but they posed a direct and serious threat to the safety of the nation!

This fear, combined with the direct threat posed by Japan (the nation), led President Franklin Roosevelt to issue, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066. An executive order is a direct mandate from the president that has all of the powers of a law without requiring congressional approval; currently, there have been over 12,000 executive orders in the history of the nation. For the sake of comparison, a few of George W. Bush's executive orders include eligibility to access national security information, amendments to an agreement on border environmental issues, and the establishment of a commission on United States space exploration (White House 2005). In short, an executive order may cover a wide range of topics, some as innocuous as the establishment of an informational committee, and others with more harmful applications, such as Executive Order 9066.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the fear of an attack on the West Coast or of an infiltration of the United States by individuals of Japanese descent became almost overpowering.

American sentiment was not bent in favor of Asian-Americans to begin with; this bias toward the Japanese-Americans was overtly abused in the application of Executive Order 9066. Before examining the abuses in its application, first, we will examine the order itself.

Brief in length, Executive Order 9066 nonetheless granted a huge amount of power to the military to monitor and secure the western states and Pacific region. It authorized "military commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable," (Roosevelt 1942). These "restrictions" included the power "to apprehend, restrain, secure and remove" persons presumed dangerous to the United States; the order never specifically stated that Japanese-Americans were to be considered these dangerous individuals. Despite the fact that "the executive order in itself was constitutionally sound...the intent of the order was to exclude Japanese-Americans" (Tateishi and Yoshino 2000, p. 10).

This executive order bestowed significant powers on the specified military commanders-but who were they to be? The West Coast Army chief, John DeWitt, for one. General DeWitt "urged the President to intern the Japanese" despite "no evidence of sabotage" (Persico 2001, p. 168). The powers given to DeWitt almost guaranteed the internment of Japanese-Americans-this man had repeatedly called for their removal or at least, their captivity to ensure the protection of the United States. DeWitt was quoted as saying,

Jap's a Jap. They are a dangerous element, whether loyal or not. There is not way to determine their loyalty...It makes no difference whether he is an American; theoretically the is still a Japanese, and you can't change him...you can't change him by giving him a piece of paper. (Spickard 1996, p. 98)

Sentiments such as these were the prevailing mood among the higher-ups in Washington; many scholars have noted the significant weight that FDR gave to his military leaders (Spickard 1996). The President held a "sincere and ingrained fear of internal subversion," and after a such a shocking attack on his own soil as Pearl Harbor, his desire for national security outweighed the potential conflicts with civil liberties that might be presented with Executive Order 9066 (Persico 2001).

Many have surmised and speculated about Roosevelt's intentions for the order; likely the whole truth will never be known. The order itself did not specify that the Japanese people were to be contained; however, it would have been almost impossible for Roosevelt to not know about the racist proclivities of General DeWitt, who described the entire Japanese race as "subversive," "an enemy race" (Raskin 1991). De Witt often made the argument that "sabotage was imminent simply because it had not yet happened" (Rancourt 1993). The preposterousness of this argument-that just because no internal sabotage had occurred, it must be very close to happening-was never argued against with any severity. In fact, all of the anti-Japanese sentiments that lead up to and resulted in the internment camps were accepted with relative ease by the general public-their prior discomfort with the Japanese immigrants, combined with the military threat from Japan, resulted in… READ MORE

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