Intergenerational Differences Created by Pearl Harbor Attack - Essay Example

The US believed that the Japanese Americans were going to pledge their loyalty to Japan instead of America since Japan was their origin country. This distrust resulting from suspicion by the American public stemmed a harsher life for the Japanese Americans which ultimately led to the internment camps. As a result of this attack, the Japanese Americans faced very harsh condemnation from the American government as well as the American public.

An anti-Japanese upsurge began with the United Stated government and soon the United States military followed suit. In 1942, Lieutenant General Americans John L. DeWitt shared his anti-Japanese feelings and debated on the effort by Japanese Americans to assimilate into American culture. He stated, "The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become 'Americanized,' the racial strains are undiluted"(Kurashige and Yang 56 ). In his opinion it didn’t matter how much the Japanese Americans put effort to assimilate the American culture, they would never truly get there. There are race differences and they will always be there.

The American community and the government went off their accepted reactions and created anti-Japanese sentiments went off their accepted reactions and the reactions of their government to create anti-Japanese sentiments all over the nation. The other American citizens did not accommodate the Japanese Americans anymore and as a result, any assimilating done by the Japanese before the done was lost due to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans were instantaneously taken as dangerous because they were anticipated to participate in sabotage (Kurashige and Yang 61).

The fear by the government of the US and the American public resulted in the internment camps. In 1942 Japanese Americans immigrants, as well as American-born Japanese, were placed in these internment camps. This in turn resulted in total loss of the culture the Japanese Americans had assimilated as they were completely shut out from this culture. It is during this time when Japanese Americans were in the internment camps that the United States prepared its military for a hit-back attack. These internment camps were also used as an act of revenge against the Japanese.

The Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese and the retaliatory actions of the United States government led to terror and resentment against the Japanese Americans. When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan they introduced the idea that all Japanese were responsible for the wrong-doing of the Japanese military. In connection to this, the internment camps held the not guilty Japanese Americans to make sure that they would not commit evil. This idea that the Japanese were so evil spread across the entire nation (Allen 36).

The dropping of the atomic bombs marked the disastrous culmination of the war. The United States as a nation put effort to go back to normal life since the war no longer raged on; however, the hatred and the discrimination against Japanese Americans persisted. These Japanese Americans who had lived in America attempting to assimilate the American culture and ultimately become Americans lost everything they had gained.

In the eyes of many American citizens, Japanese Americans were only looked at from the perspective of being Japanese. As time passed, however, Japanese Americans gradually worked their way back into American culture through the process of assimilation.

Times have changed and the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the dropping of the atomic bombs. Japanese Americans are recognized by many individuals as simply, Americans, yet there is and may always be the percentage of Americans public who will not permit themselves to view Japanese Americans beyond the past. To them, ethnic differences will always be there. Read More