Reflection On Japanese American Internment

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At its core, I do not believe that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two was morally justified. Of course, I say this with hindsight and more than 70 years after the event took place. I can almost understand why they went through with internment if I were to put myself into the frame of mind they had. The country was attacked out of the blue on its own soil by a country that we were not at war with. Anger and mistrust was high and I believe that this blinded them into making their decision. Considering the order to initiate internment came just two months after the attack, I think that the government was guilty of letting prejudice and fear drive their actions. There was no hard evidence of any Japanese-American directly supporting Japan at the time of internment (Lindsay, 2012). Even if interning would have saved Americans from further attacks and it would have been the …show more content…
Reparations are a type of backward-looking view of justice. This view of justice is concerned with looking back at past events to understand where we went wrong and how we can make amends (Rosenstand, 2013). I personally believe saying sorry and throwing money at the survivors does not help to repair what was done to these people. I agree with the government’s recognition and official apology but I think it should have ended there. Giving money to the survivors almost seems like an appeasement to make the survivors stop complaining. I agree with Emmanuel Levinas when he said, “. . . the other’s right to exist has primacy over my own. (Rosenstand, 2013)” Although he was specifically talking about the right to life and the evils of murdering I think we can apply it in this situation as well. The government turned a group of living, breathing people into a category of potentially dangerous people. The best reparation, therefore, is to give these people back their lost humanity by recognizing the wrongness of our

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