The+Camp+Experience+2

=The Camp Experience Part 2=

//Questions of Loyalty // Feb. 8, 1943 the US Army distributed application for the citizens of Japanese American Ancestry. Everyone ages seventeen and older were required to complete the questionnaire. This act against the Japanese American cause great distress on the people in the camps. Two main questions that stood out were on the separation the “loyal” from the “disloyal” for the internees:

Question #27 asked: "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?"

-Question #28 asked: "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?"

WRA Director, Dillon S. Myers said later that “A bad mistake was made in the loyalty question." No matter what age the individual was the question were too difficult to answer. The internees were judge on the way they answered these questions

//Draft Resisters // Some Nisei men resisted the draft on the grounds that their constitutional rights and those of their family members had been violated in the incarceration. 315 Nisei refused to report for induction into the armed forces until their constitutional rights were restored. In all, 267 men from the detention camps were convicted of draft resistance and sentenced to three years in federal penitentiaries

//Court Challenges // __Hirabayashi v. United States. __ Gordon Hirabayashi, a second generation Japanese American, born and raised in Washington, was a senior at the University of Washington. Hirabayashi was arrested and convicted on two counts, one for violating General DeWitt's curfew order, and two, for failing to register at a control center to prepare for departure to an "assembly" center.

__Yasui v. United States. __ Minoru Yasui was an American born citizen of Japanese ancestry, a graduate of the University of Oregon Law School, a U.S. Army reserve officer, an attorney and active member of the Japanese American Citizens League. Yasui challenged the curfew orders on the grounds of racial discrimination. He served nine months in solitary confinement while awaiting trial.

//Military Service// Many of the Nisei volunteered for the Army. The 100th Infantry Battalion / 442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most highly decorated unit in U.S. history. Many also served on the front lines as translators and interpreters in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) in the Pacific war. Nisei women also served in the Women's Auxiliary Corps (WAC's). General Charles Willoughby, General Douglas MacArthur's chief intelligence officer, remarked that the work of the Nisei MIS shortened the Pacific war by two years.

//End of Exclusion// On December 17, 1944, the government, fearing a negative Court decision, announced the end of the mass exclusion order against Japanese Americans. The Supreme Court ruled on December 18, 1944, that the government could no longer detain loyal citizens (against their will. This led to the opening of the West Coast for resettlement. On March 20, 1946, the last of the ten major detention camps for good.

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