Transcript THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR II

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
1942-1945
Pre-war Japanese
• Approximately 110,000
Japanese Americans
in 1941
• 1st and 2nd 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.
Executive
Order
9066
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
• http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5089.htm
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
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.”