Japanese Internment

Task: Imagine you are a journalist in the USA in 1942. You have just found out about the internment of the Japanese. Explain:
     a. How you could write a very controversial article, and what you could put in it?
     b. Why you probably won't do it?

Article: The United States has been pulled into the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese. Even though those Japs are five-feet tall, and weigh less than 100 lb, they are brutal, killing machines that have no soul. They deliberately took out half of the US fleet in one attack. An attack that big could have only been done by a person who has no care for anything else besides themselves. The Japanese think of themselves as the best and everyone else inferier to them. In order to perserve and protect our American values, rights and people, we must prevent any inside Japanese help is to bring all the Japanese-Americans into internment, away from the California Coast line, so they are not able to help or have contact with the Japanese whatsoever. The Japanese-Americans need to be keep from society and have no contact with any other people besides themselves. If we carry out this procedure accordingly, the United States has a better chance of winning this war and perserving what is sacred to us like our land, our people and our values.

a. You could write a very controversial article by being completely biased and only viewing one side of a possible solution to the problem. In this article I have created above, I have only stated the bad potential things that the Japanese-Americans might do. I also completely stereotyped the Japanese by saying that they are all five-feet tall and weigh less than 100 lb. I also said they were heartless, killing machines that have no soul. In addition, I also stated how the only way we could win the war was to isolated a certain type of people and take them away from there home to a place in the middle of nowhere with no outside communications. Not only is this a hugh violation to their civil rights but it also shows how the United States has overreacted to the situation concerning the many Japanese-Americans living on the west coast.

b. I probably would not write or publish this article because it is demeaning to the integrity of the Japanese-Americans. We do not know that the Japanese-Americans are plotting against us with their native land. Most people that emigrate from their native country to the US usually leave because they do not like the way their government is running their country or because they do not have the same opportunities they would have had if they were living in America. Furthermore, it is also very racist for the United States to narrow down their ethnic groups to just one in particular. At the time, the US not only had Japanese emigrants residing, but also German and Italians Americans as well. In conclusion, I would not publish this article because it a complete violation to civil rights of the Japanese Americans as well as it is also very demeaning/