After the disaster at Pearl Harbor, "anti-Japanese prejudice erupted into hate and suspicion." The Japanese Americans were outcast in fear that they were spies. The solution was to make internment camps. They were camps that kept the Japanese-Americans imprisoned. These camps lasted until the end of the war. America was in a state of panic. "On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called for the exclusion and internment of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast." I didn't understand what was so wrong with them, they are Americans after all. As I was sitting in the chair in the kitchen watching my mother cook dinner for my father, I decided to ask my mother what her opinion was on the subject. "Mother, why are all the Japanese being imprisoned?"
"Well sweetheart they might be spies, we don't know, and because this is such a big war that we are involved in, we don't want to risk having Japanese spies in our country," she clarified.
"But does this really give us the right to lock them up?" I asked.
"Well, I'm not really sure sweetheart, but that's not up to us. But wouldn't you want to be safe than sorry?"
"I guess," I muttered.
"Set the table Barbara."
"Yes mother" I replied obediently. I got up, walked to the cabinet and pulled the plates out. I walked around and placed them all on the table. I kept thinking about how those people must have felt, to all of a sudden be uprooted from everything you know and placed in a camp. This war was making me think too much. Things that used to be inhumane were being rationalized. It seemed like the world was turned upside down.
YOU ARE READING
A Life to Remember
Historical FictionBased on a true story about a 16 year old girl growing up during World War II. The story follows Barbara, a 16 year old girl growing up in a small town in America during the war.
