History of the United States II / Unit 12 USH2 1684 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Internment
The idea
Under the order about one hundred twenty thousand people of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes and held in camps, and sixty-six percent of them had been born in the United States, the anchor records. The anchor calls it the culmination of racist assumptions unleashed by Pearl Harbor. The Yawp adds that those detained were placed in the custody of the War Relocation Authority and lost their homes and their jobs.
In practice
Families leaving their homes for guarded camps in seven states, from California to Arkansas.
Where people slip
Two facts belong together. Two-thirds of those held were American citizens, and nearly thirty-three thousand Japanese Americans wore the nation's uniform, the anchor says; the Yawp gives thirty thousand. The four hundred forty-second Regimental Combat Team, the anchor records, finished the war the most decorated unit in American military history. The misreading treats internment as a response to proven disloyalty; the record the anchor gives, citizens confined and a decorated regiment from the same community, does not support it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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