Racism in World War II

Yasmin Senouci

US History
Richard Barclay
14th March 2014

During World War II, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans started to believe
the Japanese Americans living in the United States were untrustworthy. They were considered
the enemy. The American Government became extremely paranoid of the potentially
dangerous Japanese; they decided to take action and sent them to internment camps. The
treatment of the Japanese both in the camps and out was cruel and unjust. African Americans
during the war were also oppressed. They were separated from the Americans in the military and
received less significant roles due to the fact Americans saw them as incapable of doing the
important jobs. Narratives of the Japanese and African Americans showcase the struggles and
hardships both ethnic groups faced whilst trying to be accepted in American society.
The people of America discriminated against Japanese Americans and African Americans
in many different ways. The Japanese Americans were unable to do simple things that
Americans were able to do on a daily basis. For instance, after the war a soldier named Captain
Inouye was unable to get his hair cut in a barbershop, he was told we dont serve Japs here
(Takaki 350). Many of the internees returning from camps were greeted by hostile signs which
read No Japs allowed no Japs welcome (Takaki 350). The Japanese fought to prove their
loyalty to the United States and eliminate the discrimination they were receiving. This however
did not change the way Americans perceived them; they were still seen as the enemy. Americans
discriminated against people with any kind of Japanese ancestry, General DeWitt wrote The
Japanese 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... (Takaki 433). On February 19, President Roosevelt signed an order
which told the secretary of war to prescribe military areas, essentially this order allowed

Japanese to be relocated the order did not specify the Japanese as the group to be excluded, but
they were the target (Takaki 344). The Japanese were the main target of racial hatred in the
United States because they were much easier to identify. The amount of Japanese taken into
custody compared to the amount of white Germans and Italians was significantly different; there
were 1,291 Japanese (367 in Hawaii, 924 on the mainland), 857 Germans, and 147 Italians
(Takaki 343). Japanese Americans were not the only ones who were unwelcomed in the
community. For example, an African American named Bert Babero, explained how he was
refused lunch at the service clubs, he was told we dont serve colored (Takaki 352). Being
treated in such a way made the blacks feel honestly [disheartened] (Takaki 351). Both ethnic
groups suffered many racial difficulties throughout the war making it hard for them to feel
welcome in the United States.
A huge struggle these ethnic groups had to deal with was being made to feel
inferior by the Americans. A lieutenant named General DeWitt declared that he had no
confidence in the loyalty of the Japanese living on the West Coast: A Jap is a Jap is a Jap
(Takaki 343). He believed that all Japanese were the same, it did not matter whether they were a
citizen or not; they could not be trusted, because of where they came from. The Japanese were
treated as though they were not humans; their freedom of speech and rights were cruelly taken
away. They lost their possessions and homes but the most valuable thing [they] lost was [their]
freedom (Takaki 345). Another example of how Japanese Americans were completely
dehumanized whilst being put in the internment camps is how at the control centers, the men,
women, and children were registered and each family was given a number (Takaki 345). One
of the ways African Americans were made to feel inferior is due to the fact Roosevelt signed an
act which did not allow the white Americans to mix with people of color in the army. Because

the Americans in the army were unable to mix with the African Americans they had separate
bathrooms. Private Babero describes how the German prisoners of war were able to use the
white soldiers bathrooms but the African Americans were not. This discouraged him greatly, it
seemed to him as though the tyrant is actually placed over the liberator (Takaki 350). The
African Americans in the military were restricted to certain jobs such as being waiters, laborers
and stevedores. For a long time Black pilots could not be used (Takaki 352) because this
would result in having Negro officers serving over white enlisted men (Takaki 352).
Americans felt superior to African Americans and believed that blacks were not smart enough
to be pilots (Takaki 353). Americans genuinely believed they were smarter than African
Americans. They believed the African Americans were incapable of flying the planes. No
matter how hard the Japanese and African Americans tried to prove themselves, the Americans
did not consider them equal to their own people.
The U.S government controlled many aspects of these ethnic groups lives; this being
another reason they struggled to fit into American society. They controlled where the Japanese
Americans lived by forcing them to relocate into internment camps. The Japanese people were
obviously unhappy with this, however, they felt they had no choice but to comply with the
evacuation orders (Takaki 345). They had no voice in American society therefore they obeyed
and left everything they had ever known. They were forced to leave behind most of their
possessions such as their refrigerators, cars, furniture, radios, pianos, and houses (Takaki 345)
they were only able to take what they could carry with them, consequently, leaving behind what
they had spent their whole lives working for. Although the internees were living they were not
really alive, they were trapped somewhere they did not want to be. A poem written by an
internee read: Birds, living in a cage, the human spirit (Takaki 346). This poem expresses how

many of the internees were feeling, their lives had been flipped upside down and they found
themselves in a world of military-like routine (Takaki 346). The Japanese Americans, however,
were not alone African Americans were also under control of the U.S government. They were
unable to go to the church services on the camp, one soldier said We have to be told when we
can go and worship god (Takaki 352). They were limited to jobs that protected the white
Americans, African Americans wanted equal opportunity to fight in combat, but most of them
found themselves assigned to service and support duties (Takaki 352). Neither one of the ethnic
groups had freedom tantamount to that of American citizens; they were controlled by the
government as if they were puppets not people.
The narratives of both the Japanese and African Americans illuminates the challenges that
people faced to be accepted in the United States during World War II. American society shunned
these ethnic groups, thus leaving them feeling worthless and irrelevant, in the place they
considered home. Essentially the way the American people treated both Japanese and African
Americans led them to feel inferior and unwelcomed in the land that is America.