Japanese Americans’ Bank Accounts Were Frozen. One such family was the Knott Family of Knott’s Berry Farm who targeted local Japanese tenant strawberry farmers. Make no mistake, rounding up Japanese Americans and packing them off to concentration was an orchestrated effort by local prominent businessmen to eliminate competition. Japanese Americans were resented for their work ethic and what little economic success they achieved. Just like in Nazi Germany.Įliminating Japanese Americans competitors was the real reason for Internment camps. Propaganda to sway the American people into indifference played a huge role. Seuss played his part in creating popular political cartoons against the Asian American population. In the media and through entertainment like movies, musicals, and books, Asians were dehumanized. A whole series of events happened leading up to this first. When soldiers showed up on her doorstep, giving her family just two days to pack up one suitcase each, leaving all their belongings behind this didn’t happen overnight. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The Asian Exclusion Act, part of the Immigration Act of 1924, completely excluded immigrants from Asia. Japanese immigrants were, by law, not allowed to own property in the United States, even if they could afford to buy a home for themselves and their families. Even if she aced the government civil service exam, she would never be hired. For example, Japanese Americans like herself were not allowed to work for the government as civil servants. She, like all Japanese Americans (and the Chinese who immigrated before them in large numbers), was subject to racism which included special laws meant to limit their economic success. After school every day, she would go, on roller skates, from her high school to Japanese school to study the language and arts like ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement, stopping on the way in a Japanese convenience store for a snack like senbei, Japanese rice crackers. My mother was born in San Francisco’s Japantown. I’m probably one of a few children’s book bloggers whose family was forced into internment camps during WWII for being Japanese American. During WWII, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 in response to prejudiced fears that Japanese Americans were spies.

I am an american by jerry stanley