"It doesn’t matter what your skin, where you’re from, or your religion. You jump right into the great American melting pot"—these are the lyrics of a song from a classical educational children's TV show, Schoolhouse Rock!. From a young age, many grow up being taught that America is a "melting pot", the opportune place for a newcomer to rebuild their life for the better and be part of a unified nation (“Melting Pot” a Derogatory and Incorrect Phrase). America has long been referred to as a melting pot to allude to the diverse nature of the American population and how immigrants assimilate into a common American culture. This metaphor suggests that the various cultures each person brings to America blend together to form a harmonious society.
Yet, throughout history, this oversimplified ideal has been tested and proven insufficient to characterize the attitudes of the general American public toward specific ethnicities. For instance, the internment of ethnically Japanese people during World War II and the racial profiling of Middle Eastern and Muslim people after 9/11 are both examples of America marginalizing specific groups. Despite being decades apart, both events illustrate how fear led Americans to act with discrimination and even official policy change.
Japanese Internment During WWII
The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, drove an instant and fierce reaction from Americans: anti-Japanese hysteria reached all-time highs as those of Japanese ancestry were suspected to have given critical information to the Japanese government beforehand and criticized for being loyal to Japan despite predominant American nationality.
President Roosevelt responded to Pearl Harbor and the threat of possible Japanese spies by signing Executive Order 9066 in order to prevent further espionage on US soil. This order authorized the mass forced relocation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast to internment camps: approximately 120,000 Japanese, many of whom were of American citizenship, were forcibly removed from their homes to military zones created specifically for Japanese internment.
Even before Executive Order 9066, the government had already begun to act upon anti-Japanese sentiment: with the Navy removing "citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles" weeks before the order, "the FBI [rounding-up] 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets" hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the FBI also searching "the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband" (Japanese Internment Camps). Although efforts were focused on the West Coast as it had such a concentrated Japanese American population, politicians in panic had gone as far as to call for mass incarceration in Hawaii, where a third of the population was of those of Japanese descent. From a more general perspective, Americans had become wary of their Japanese American neighbors, taking great lengths to display their hatred such as impounding Japanese-owned fishing boats and destroying Japanese-owned shops.
These Japanese Americans weren't formally pardoned by the government until 1988 when President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which acknowledged the injustice of the internment camps during World War II and admitted that "these actions were without security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, and were motivated by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" (Civil Liberties Act of 1988). Despite receiving reparations, the Japanese survivors still held scars and memories of the racially fueled actions taken against them.
Post-9/11 Racial Profiling
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 individuals, fear again gripped the country (9/11 Investigation). This time, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Muslim communities were targeted by suspicion and discrimination.
Again, the US government had taken up official policies regarding the surveillance and detention of these groups throughout the nation. President George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, allowing law enforcement to monitor and detain those suspected of terrorist connections. Wiretapping and pen/trap register monitoring are a couple of ways in which the act allowed for broader investigation powers. From here, thousands of Middle Eastern and Muslim men were detained, often without charges or material witness warrants.
Blatant prejudice had spread into American day-to-day life as well with a significant increase in hate crimes, mosque vandalizations, and workplace discrimination because individuals of Middle Eastern descent were viewed as a threat. Racial and religious profiling had become common at airports where Muslim travelers were subjected to "random" security screenings and interrogations. Once again, the FBI played a significant role in this "national security" process just as they did with Japanese internment camps in WWII as they launched a secret surveillance program targeting Muslim communities. Religious leader Sheik Fazaga commented on the FBI's spying after the Muslim community had found out that the FBI had lied after assuring them that they were not spying, "The FBI was not monitoring individuals. The FBI was monitoring the entire community" (How the FBI Spied on Orange County Muslims And Attempted to Get Away With It).
Another controversial policy was the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS for short. First implemented in 2002, NSEERS required the registration and inspection of men from 25 predominantly Muslim countries (DHS Removes Designated Countries from NSEERS Registration). There was no concrete evidence directly associating these men with terrorist activities, but the activity was justified under national security concerns as it regulated the travelling of potential terrorists and associates. NSEERS was finally dismantled in 2016, but it had already negatively impacted the targeted communities significantly.
Similarities Between The Events
Even if both instances are separated by decades, parallels can be drawn in how prejudice and fear can overtake and convince a society to strip a minority group of their civil rights. During WWII, Japanese Americans were guilty by association as it was claimed that their Japanese ethnicity made them loyal to Japan even if they had spent their whole lives in America. After 9/11 many Muslim and Middle Eastern people were also unfairly assumed to have ties to the attack and other terrorist acts. Both Japanese internment and post-9/11 racial profiling were backed by government policies, showing how the US government could enforce policies of racial discrimination in the name of national security. In both cases, much investigation against these groups was unfounded despite being framed as necessary. Just as no significant acts of disloyalty were displayed in the majority of Japanese Americans, many targets of post-9/11 policies did not have evidence to convict them.
Overall, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and the racial profiling after 9/11 share a multitude of similarities and differences. Even though Japanese internment is now regarded as a grave injustice, post-9/11 policies repeated similar mistakes. This goes to show how fear drives policies that threaten the civil liberties of innocents, and why it is important to recognize such patterns to avoid history from recurring.
Sources:
https://www.aclu.org/end-mass-surveillance-under-the-patriot-act#:~:text=These%20records%20include%20the%20numbers,should%20be%20allowed%20to%20expire.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442
https://www.dhs.gov/dhs-removes-designated-countries-nseers-registration-may-2011
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
https://www.historynet.com/japanese-internment-camps-wwii/
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/911-investigation
https://rac.org/blog/president-obama-ends-controversial-nseers-program
https://theoccidentalnews.com/uncategorized/2016/01/01/melting-pot-a-derogatory-and-incorrect-phrase/2882079
"The Great Melting Pot" by Schoolhouse Rock!
Yet, throughout history, this oversimplified ideal has been tested and proven insufficient to characterize the attitudes of the general American public toward specific ethnicities. For instance, the internment of ethnically Japanese people during World War II and the racial profiling of Middle Eastern and Muslim people after 9/11 are both examples of America marginalizing specific groups. Despite being decades apart, both events illustrate how fear led Americans to act with discrimination and even official policy change.
Japanese Internment During WWII
The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, drove an instant and fierce reaction from Americans: anti-Japanese hysteria reached all-time highs as those of Japanese ancestry were suspected to have given critical information to the Japanese government beforehand and criticized for being loyal to Japan despite predominant American nationality.
President Roosevelt responded to Pearl Harbor and the threat of possible Japanese spies by signing Executive Order 9066 in order to prevent further espionage on US soil. This order authorized the mass forced relocation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast to internment camps: approximately 120,000 Japanese, many of whom were of American citizenship, were forcibly removed from their homes to military zones created specifically for Japanese internment.
Even before Executive Order 9066, the government had already begun to act upon anti-Japanese sentiment: with the Navy removing "citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles" weeks before the order, "the FBI [rounding-up] 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets" hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the FBI also searching "the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband" (Japanese Internment Camps). Although efforts were focused on the West Coast as it had such a concentrated Japanese American population, politicians in panic had gone as far as to call for mass incarceration in Hawaii, where a third of the population was of those of Japanese descent. From a more general perspective, Americans had become wary of their Japanese American neighbors, taking great lengths to display their hatred such as impounding Japanese-owned fishing boats and destroying Japanese-owned shops.
Crowded Conditions of Japanese Americans Incarcerated at Santa Anita in California
These Japanese Americans weren't formally pardoned by the government until 1988 when President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which acknowledged the injustice of the internment camps during World War II and admitted that "these actions were without security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, and were motivated by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" (Civil Liberties Act of 1988). Despite receiving reparations, the Japanese survivors still held scars and memories of the racially fueled actions taken against them.
Post-9/11 Racial Profiling
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 individuals, fear again gripped the country (9/11 Investigation). This time, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Muslim communities were targeted by suspicion and discrimination.
Again, the US government had taken up official policies regarding the surveillance and detention of these groups throughout the nation. President George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, allowing law enforcement to monitor and detain those suspected of terrorist connections. Wiretapping and pen/trap register monitoring are a couple of ways in which the act allowed for broader investigation powers. From here, thousands of Middle Eastern and Muslim men were detained, often without charges or material witness warrants.
Blatant prejudice had spread into American day-to-day life as well with a significant increase in hate crimes, mosque vandalizations, and workplace discrimination because individuals of Middle Eastern descent were viewed as a threat. Racial and religious profiling had become common at airports where Muslim travelers were subjected to "random" security screenings and interrogations. Once again, the FBI played a significant role in this "national security" process just as they did with Japanese internment camps in WWII as they launched a secret surveillance program targeting Muslim communities. Religious leader Sheik Fazaga commented on the FBI's spying after the Muslim community had found out that the FBI had lied after assuring them that they were not spying, "The FBI was not monitoring individuals. The FBI was monitoring the entire community" (How the FBI Spied on Orange County Muslims And Attempted to Get Away With It).
Another controversial policy was the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS for short. First implemented in 2002, NSEERS required the registration and inspection of men from 25 predominantly Muslim countries (DHS Removes Designated Countries from NSEERS Registration). There was no concrete evidence directly associating these men with terrorist activities, but the activity was justified under national security concerns as it regulated the travelling of potential terrorists and associates. NSEERS was finally dismantled in 2016, but it had already negatively impacted the targeted communities significantly.
Fingerprint Registration Under NSEERS
Similarities Between The Events
Even if both instances are separated by decades, parallels can be drawn in how prejudice and fear can overtake and convince a society to strip a minority group of their civil rights. During WWII, Japanese Americans were guilty by association as it was claimed that their Japanese ethnicity made them loyal to Japan even if they had spent their whole lives in America. After 9/11 many Muslim and Middle Eastern people were also unfairly assumed to have ties to the attack and other terrorist acts. Both Japanese internment and post-9/11 racial profiling were backed by government policies, showing how the US government could enforce policies of racial discrimination in the name of national security. In both cases, much investigation against these groups was unfounded despite being framed as necessary. Just as no significant acts of disloyalty were displayed in the majority of Japanese Americans, many targets of post-9/11 policies did not have evidence to convict them.
Overall, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and the racial profiling after 9/11 share a multitude of similarities and differences. Even though Japanese internment is now regarded as a grave injustice, post-9/11 policies repeated similar mistakes. This goes to show how fear drives policies that threaten the civil liberties of innocents, and why it is important to recognize such patterns to avoid history from recurring.
Sources:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442
https://www.dhs.gov/dhs-removes-designated-countries-nseers-registration-may-2011
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
https://www.historynet.com/japanese-internment-camps-wwii/
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/911-investigation
https://rac.org/blog/president-obama-ends-controversial-nseers-program
https://theoccidentalnews.com/uncategorized/2016/01/01/melting-pot-a-derogatory-and-incorrect-phrase/2882079
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