THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR II AMERICA TURNS THE TIDE

MOBILIZING FOR DEFENSE Japan Times newspaper said America was “trembling in their shoes” But if America was trembling, it was with rage, not fear “Remember Pearl Harbor” was the rallying cry

AMERICANS RUSH TO ENLIST After Pearl Harbor, 5 million Americans enlisted to fight in the war The Selective Service Act expanded the draft and eventually provided an additional 10 million soldiers

WOMEN JOIN THE FIGHT The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) In this program women worked as Nurses Ambulance drivers Radio operators Pilots

Women in the War Video

ALL AMERICANS FOUGHT Despite discrimination at home, minority populations contributed to the war effort 1 million African-Americans 300,000 Mexican-Americans 33,000 Japanese Americans 25,000 Native Americans 13,000 Chinese Americans

A PRODUCTION MIRACLE The nation’s automobile plants began to produce tanks, planes, boats, and jeeps Other industries also converted to make guns and uniforms

LABOR’S CONTRIBUTION By 1944, nearly 18 million workers were laboring in war industries More than 6 million of were women and nearly 2 million were minority

ECONOMIC GAINS By 1944 Unemployment fell to 1.2% Wages rose 35% Farmers too benefited as production doubled and income tripled

WOMEN MAKE GAINS Women got new jobs that women had never had before Over 6 million women entered the work force for the first time Although many lost their jobs after the war

THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II

Pre-war Japanese Approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans in st and 2 nd generation immigrants Many U.S. citizens Most lived on West Coast Most loyal Americans

Japanese Immigration to the U.S. Issei-A legal Japanese Immigrant to the U.S. that arrived before the National Origins Act of 1924 excluded the Japanese from immigrating to the U.S. Nisei-A child of Japanese immigrants that was born, educated and lived in the U.S. Nisei were U.S. citizens because they were born in the U.S.

Pearl Harbor Attacked by Japan

Pearl Harbor-Quotes December 7, 1941 was a cloudy day, and even for San Diego it was chilly. I was in my hot house in our backyard busying myself with the camellias I grew as a hobby. About noon my oldest son burst through the door. "Papa," he told me with wide eyes and short gasps of breath, "Papa, Papa, Japan has bombed Hawaii." Josuke Sakamoto

Executive Order 9066 President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon.

Map of the Areas to be Evacuated

Question Why were Japanese Americans interred but not German or Italian Americans? What made them different?

When the war began, 120,000 Japanese Americans lived in the U.S. – mostly on the West Coast

Families were forced to sell businesses…

And pack up their possessions…

… in order to relocate to the internment camps.

Location of the 10 Internment camps

Video

Questions: According the video, why were the Japanese required to move? Why was it deemed necessary to move the Japanese away from the coast? How did the move gloss over or ignore some of the challenges the evacuees would have faced? In what ways was the video inaccurate? What were the detention centers like? What was the point of this video? Who was the intended audience?

Jerome camp in Arkansas

Life in the Camps Children had to attend school in cramped classrooms…

Life in the Camps …and the camps were always monitored by guards from the U.S. Army.

Life in the Camps They had to plant and farm their own gardens, which supplemented their diets at the camp. The army didn’t supply the best food.

Loyal to the U.S. Government Many Japanese Americans served in the United States military during World War II, while their family members were interned in a camp.

Suits against the U.S. Government Hirabayashi v. United States – the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that a curfew order affecting only Japanese Americans was constitutional. Korematsu v. United States – the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the order calling for the relocation of Japanese Americans as constitutional.

Looking Back President Gerald Ford issued Proclamation 4417 in 1976, which apologized to Japanese Americans for interment during World War II. Ronald Reagan signed a law in 1988 which provided $20,000 to every interned Japanese American. The checks were sent out in 1990 along with a note from President Bush saying, “We can never fully right the wrongs of the past... we now recognize that serious wrongs were done to Japanese Americans during WWII.”