Prior to the attack on the US naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Americans were by and large concerned with American affairs; the nation was in an era of isolationism after the horrors of World War I. With the surprise attack, however, public opinion changed and the country went to war. Views of Japanese-Americans also changed, and not for the better.
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US and Japan were in negotiations to remain at peace. The surprise attack on Hawaii was viewed as very subversive and many believed that Japanese in Hawaii helped with the attack. This belief turned Americans against their neighbors of Japanese descent and led to President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19th, 1942.
EO 9066 established military zones in which people of Japanese decent were not allowed. The entire west coast was declared a military zone and many Japanese-Americans were relocated to interior America or to internment camps. In Hawaii, Japanese-Americans were placed in an internment camp on Sand Island not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The fear was that these citizens supported Japan and had assisted with the attack, but there was no evidence to prove this. One incident in which a Japanese pilot crash landed on a remote Hawaiian island and was aided by Japanese immigrants helped to spur on the anti-Japanese hysteria and EO 9066.
General John DeWitt of the Western Defense Command was very vocal about placing Americans of Japanese descent in internment camps, without any military reason; simply put, he was prejudiced against Japanese "undesirables," suspecting--again, without any evidence or indication--that they would engage in sabotage.
On August 10, 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act. This Act formally apologized to the Japanese-American community for their unjust incarceration during World War II and paid $20,000 to each of the survivors of the camps. When the Japanese-Americans were released from the internment camps, they wanted to put that very embarrassing part of their past behind them.
But with the Civil Rights Movement, the Japanese-American community began to seek an apology from the American government. They were not fueled by a desire for financial gain but rather to make life better for future generations of Japanese-Americans, in fulfillment of a Japanese family value: "Kodomo no tame ni," For the sake of the children.
With the rise of DAESH (the Arabic name for ISIL or ISIS) and the recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernadino, many Americans are succumbing to their fear of others and Islam in particular, which is resulting in calls for tracking all American Muslims, placing them in camps, refusing to allow refugees into the country and, most recently, even a call by a Christian university president to "end those Muslims."
The fear of Japanese-Americans during World War II was unfounded and caused a lot of people undue harm. Many Japanese-Americans enlisted in the military to fight against the Axis Powers. These people who were forced from their homes still fought for their country because they were loyal American citizens and the rest of the country had no reason to fear them.
We must learn from our terrible mistake of unjust, forced internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans and Italian-Americans, and not give in to fear. By giving in to fear and discriminating against American Muslims, we assist DAESH in succeeding in its mission to spread terror and divisiveness.
As President Roosevelt so eloquently said in his inauguration speech: "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He could have been talking about today's hysterical and unAmerican fear of American Muslims.
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