Short Synopsis
Bombing of Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941 our country was brutally attacked for the first time on our own soil by an outside enemy, Japan. Pearl Harbor would live on as a day that would forever change America and the way our nation reacted would follow us for years to come. After Pearl Harbor, Americans were in fear of Imperial Japan and a possibility attack on American soil. Fear consumed our country, causing our government to act irrationally by interning Japanese Americans and Japanese. In 1942, there were estimated 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans relocated and interned. An Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that “…Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions … may impose in his discretion”(Roosevelt). This allowed Japanese to be relocated. First, they had to register for the camps and then they were labeled and transported on trains to camps. They were given a small amount of time to get rid of their homes and possessions that could not be carried. Sometimes they were only given two days and this caused them to be forced to sell possession for much less than they were worth. Once in the camp, they were forced to live in poor conditions and have their civil rights violated. The reasons for internment would later be speculated as revenge from Pearl Harbor and an anti-Japanese sentiment that had been growing before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Years later reparations were made to by the government to try to make up for what they had done.