Essay Assignment: Japanese-American Internment during World War II

The events of December 8, 1941, in Pearl Harbor dramatically changed the lives of Japanese-Americans (Issei and Nisei) living on the West Coast. In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on the United States Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, the FBI arrested—without charge—over 1,300 “suspicious” individuals and continued monitoring Japanese-Americans with fears that the bombing at Pearl Harbor was the result of illicit collaboration between “dangerous enemy aliens” and the Japanese government. As a result of this perceived threat on national security, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, and all Americans “of Japanese descent” were relocated and incarcerated in ten “internment camps” regardless of their citizenship status or expression of American patriotism.

Using precise examples from Neil Nakadate’s Looking After Minidoka: An American Memoir, respond to the following questions using a formal paragraph structure:

Part One (3 body paragraphs): Explain in full three (3) separate historical ironies of the internment of Japanese-Americans. This involves using historical insight to compare ideas and events to the larger context of what we know as historians. It may explore discrepancies between motive and/or outcome or unintended consequences of internment.
Part Two (1 body paragraph): There have been a number of involuntary geospatial mandates in this country’s history. To what extent was Executive Order 9066 part of this larger trend in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

As instructed in class, this essay should feature a clear thesis statement, clear organization, topic sentences, and specific evidence to support all claims.  There is no need to provide background information on World War II or the bombing at Pearl Harbor in this essay – all components should be narrowly focused on the above question. The concluding paragraph, however, may include a consideration of Japanese-American internment within the larger historical legacy of U.S. involvement in World War II. Please reference the Essay Guidelines Worksheet for information on format and mechanics.