United States History II Name: ____________________________Japanese Internment during World War II Date: ____________________________Mini Document Based Question

DIRECTIONS: Respond to the following prompt in TWO organized paragraphs. You must write a THESIS that CLEARLY and DIRECTLY answers the prompt. You must use AT LEAST FOUR of the documents provided as EVIDENCE that supports your thesis. You must frame your evidence, include the source and accurately analyze each document in a way that supports

your thesis. Do not refer to the document as “Document A” etc. Use the title given instead. You must make a full effort to use proper grammar and spelling—this is not a “draft” that you can edit later.

DBQ PROMPT:

Was the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II a justified violation of people’s civil liberties?

THESIS (CLAIM):_____________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Document 1. Political Cartoon titled All Packed Up and Ready to Go (1942)

Document 2. Political Cartoon titled Waiting for the Signal from Home… (1942)

Document 3. First Hand Accounts of Japanese Americans held at the Tule Lake, CA Internment Camp

Document 4. Photo of a Grocery Store Owned by a Japanese American man in Oakland, CA (March 1942)

Document 5. Excerpt from an interview of a Japanese American man at Manzanar Camp (July, 1943)

“As far as I’m concerned, I was born here, and according to the Constitution that I studied in school, that I had

the Bill of Rights that should have backed me up. And until the very minute I got onto the evacuation train, I

says, ‘It can’t be’. I says, “How can they do that to an American citizen?” – Robert Kashiwagi

"Sometime the train stopped, you know, fifteen to twenty minutes to take fresh air — suppertime and in the

desert, in middle of state. Already before we get out of train, army machine guns lined up towards us — not

toward other side to protect us, but like enemy, pointed machine guns toward us. When we got to the camps it

was a prison indeed . . .There was barbed wire along the top [of the fence] and because the soldiers in the

guard towers had machine guns, one would be foolish to try to escape." - Mary Matsuda Gruenewald

I was born in Hawaii. I worked most of my life on the West Coast. I have never been to Japan. We would

have done anything to show our loyalty. All we wanted to do was to be left alone on the coast. . . . My

wife and I lost $10,000 in that evacuation. She had a beauty parlor and had to give that up. I had a good

position worked up as a gardener, and was taken away from that. We had a little home and that’s gone

now. . . .

What kind of Americanism do you call that? That’s not democracy. That’s not the American way, taking

Document 6. Excerpt of interview with Milton Eisenhower, Director of the War Relocation Authority (1942)

Document 7. Painting of the Topaz Camp by Thomas Ryosaku Matsuoka (March, 1944)

I was born in Hawaii. I worked most of my life on the West Coast. I have never been to Japan. We would

have done anything to show our loyalty. All we wanted to do was to be left alone on the coast. . . . My

wife and I lost $10,000 in that evacuation. She had a beauty parlor and had to give that up. I had a good

position worked up as a gardener, and was taken away from that. We had a little home and that’s gone

now. . . .

What kind of Americanism do you call that? That’s not democracy. That’s not the American way, taking

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our West Coast became a potential combat zone. Living in that

zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry: two thirds of them American citizens; one

third aliens. We knew that some among them were potentially dangerous. But no one knew what would

happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try to invade our shores.

First attention was given to the problems of sabotage and espionage. Now, here at San Francisco, for

example, convoys were being made up within sight of possible Axis agents. There were more Japanese in

Los Angeles than in any other area. In nearby San Pedro, houses and hotels, occupied almost exclusively

by Japanese, were within a stone’s throw of a naval air base, shipyards, oil wells. Japanese fishermen had

every opportunity to watch the movement of our ships.