Japanese Internment Camps and the Absence of Education

Just imagine for a moment someone coming to your door and telling you that you have a certain amount of time to get out, and you can only pack a little bit of things; how would you react? How would you react knowing that the life you imagined is now going to drastically change? The dreams that you once wanted to pursue in life are now about to crumble right before your eyes, what do you do?

On February 19, 1942, ten weeks after Pearl Harbor occurred, President Franklin Roosevelt signed “Executive Order 9066 to exclude any and all persons, citizens, and aliens of Japanese descent from the three Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington in order to provide security against sabotage and espionage,” despite the fact that “not a single documented act of sabotage or espionage had been committed by an American citizen or resident of Japanese ancestry”(Wu, 1). Japanese Americans from these states were instructed to pack lightly, and to meet at a specific date and time. These people were then transported to internment camps. The relocation was quite devastating to all involved; rations, restrictions and curfews were put into effect, and barbed wire gates kept the residents enclosed.

One of the most disturbing qualities of the internment camps was the lack of school curriculum and instruction given to Japanese children. The camps were not prepared to teach students, so there were no supplies or classrooms. Aside from the lack of preparation, instructors also used this time to promote America’s wartime ideals. It was the dominant “ideology that the government tried to perpetuate through reading and writing assignments that the evacuation was a necessary means for national security” (Wu, 1). The War Relocation Authority’s agenda parallels the ideals taught to Japanese children in internment camps. The schools saw the responsibility of educating Japanese children, who were thought to be dangerous traitors, as a chance to “promote an understanding of American...