Introduction
After the Japanese attacks at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, US declared war on Japan It become necessary to keep a sharp eye on the Japanese citizens who lived in pacific coast and were perceived to be threat to the national security of the US. It became necessary to relocate all the Japanese who were living in Pacific coast since that was a potential combat zone. Thousands of Japanese lived in this zone and Americans were worried on the impact on its citizens if Japan decided to attack US from that zone. The War Relocation Authority together with the American army carried out the activity that saw relocation of thousands of Japanese from San Francisco and California to interior parts of America (Takaki, 2003) .US naval bases and airport was situated in the pacific coast and the Japanese posed a great potential of danger of spying movement of American ships and informing enemy for attacks. This act violated the rights of American Japanese citizens.
Ideological changes began that fuelled the formation of civil rights to fight for liberty of all citizens. For example, a Japanese citizen living in California at the time of evacuation Fred Korematsu decided to ignore the order to vacate California to internment camps that were under guarded by the US army. He filed suits in the US Supreme Court challenging the legality of their detainment without conviction of any crimes. The Japanese started propaganda in Asia that US were a racist country and sought all the people to join their allies to fight US. The Chinese also had their propaganda that Chinese culture was superior to that of the US and thus they were supposed to be treated with dignity. These beliefs led to the advancement of civil rights movements which advocated for the abolishment of the discriminatory laws.
The advancement of civil rights movement led to the US to relax its discriminative laws against the Asians and Africans. The Chinese became aware of violent racism that was made even worse by the Japanese war and they sought to distinguish them from the Japanese through wearing of shirts that indicated that they were Chinese. In 1943, the US government passed the Magnuson Act whose aim was to reverse the Chinese exclusion act as a form of reward to the Chinese for fighting on their side during the war and subdue Japanese propaganda that US was a racist country because of its discriminatory laws. Later the War Brides Act was passed that allowed Chinese Americans to come with their wives in US. The Chinese population increased greatly while that of Japan reduced due to the conditions in the internment camps. The Filipino were allowed to join the army and this saw their number also increase in US.
After the World War 2 war, the Japanese were released from the relocation camps and they found themselves hopeless with nothing in their possession since they had been stripped their property and they had to begin a new foundation in US. America adopted a peaceful treaty to rebuild Japan after the atomic bombings and made good diplomatic relations. In 1948, the congress passed an act that allowed partial compensations to Japanese Americans .Civil rights movement lobbied intensively to have all the Japanese compensated and this led to enactment of compensation act by the government in 1988 of formal apology and $ 20000 dollars to each American Japanese who was detained in the relocation camps.
. References
Takaki. Strangers from a Different Shore,. 2003.
US Government Propaganda on Japanese American Internment and Relocation!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6gSShuQCUE
Asian American post-WWII—link !http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1DuyLRa4zQ
Fred Korematsu--Protest, Story, and Civil Rights link!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0f5OF41AWw
