“For the greater good”

1. “For the greater good” Examples in the United States of injustice brought on to protect the “greater good” of a nation.

2. Nazi Concentration Camps

3. Native Americans • "This war did not spring up on our land, this war was brought upon us by the children of the Great Father who came to take our land without a price, and who, in our land, do a great many evil things... This war has come from robbery - from the stealing of our land." - Spotted Tail

4. They were forced from their homes. • "We are now about to take our leave and kind farewell to our native land, the country the Great Spirit gave our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us birth, it is with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood...we bid farewell to it and all we hold dear." - Charles Hicks, Tsalagi (Cherokee) Vice Chief speaking of the Trail of Tears, November 4, 1838

5. Native Americans and Reservations • By creating Native American reservations, the government hoped to avoid clashes over land boundaries between Native Americans and white settlers and to confine Native American tribes to tracts where they could be watched and (occasionally) provided for by federal effort. • The tribes were generally free to live as they wished on their lands, as long as they remained peaceful. As the American frontier pushed westward, however, Native American land became increasingly attractive to white settlers, while the Native Americans themselves were considered impediments to progress. • As a result, reservations were made smaller or were relocated to remote areas undesirable to whites. By the 1880s areas reserved for the Native Americans had shrunk to about 53.4 million hectares (about 132 million acres). • Native Americans had difficulty making a living from the land, and their older cultures had been shattered by contact with whites. • As a remedy, the government tried to force them to assimilate into the mainstream of American life. The plan called for breaking up reservations into allotments, then issuing the allotments to individual Native Americans. Ideally, they were to farm their plots; instead, many of them sold their allotments or leased them to whites. Thus, by 1934, Native Americans were left with only about 25 percent of the reservation land they had held in the 1880s.

6. Japanese internment during WWII • We saw all these people behind the fence, looking out, hanging onto the wire, and looking out because they were anxious to know who was coming in. But I will never forget the shocking feeling that human beings were behind this fence like animals [crying]. And we were going to also lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves…cooped up there…when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free." -Mary Tsukamoto

7. Japanese American Relocation Centers

8. Timeline of events leading to the captivity of Japanese-Americans • August 18, 1941 In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan. • December 7, 1941 The attack on Pearl Harbor. Local authorities and the F.B.I. begin to round up the Issei leadership of the Japanese American communities in Hawaii and on the mainland. By 6:30 a.m. the following morning 736 Issei are in custody; within 48 hours, the number would be 1,291. Caught by surprise for the most part, these men are held under no formal charges and family members are forbidden from seeing them. Most would spend the war years in enemy alien internment camps run by the Justice Department. • February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limited interest at the time, this order in effect set the stage for the entire forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. • February 25, 1942 The Navy informs Japanese American residents of Terminal Island near Los Angeles Harbor that they must leave in 48 hours. They are the first group to be removed en masse and suffer especially heavy losses as a result. • February 27, 1942 Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee in Seattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they were in "concentration camps under military guard." Some credit Clark with the conception of what was to become a true scenario. • March 21, 1942 The first advance groups of Japanese American "volunteers" arrive at Manzanar. The WRA would take over on June 1 and transform it into a "relocation center.” • March 24, 1942 The first Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the Army is issued for the Bainbridge Island area near Seattle. The forty-five families there are given one week to prepare. By the end of October, 108 exclusion orders would be issued, and all Japanese Americans in Military Area No. 1 and the California portion of No. 2 would be incarcerated. • May 13, 1942 Forty-five year old Ichiro Shimoda, a Los Angeles gardener, is shot to death by guards while trying to escape from Fort Still (Oklahoma) enemy alien internment camp. The victim was seriously mentally ill, having tried suicide twice since being picked up on December 7. He is shot despite the guards' knowledge of his mental state. • October 20, 1942 President Roosevelt calls the "relocation centers" "concentration camps" at a press conference. The WRA had consistently denied that the term "concentration camps" accurately described the camps.

9. Attitudes of Americans towards people of Japanese ancestry during WWII • "A Jap's a Jap. There is no way to determine their loyalty... This coast is too vulnerable. No Jap should come back to this coast except on a permit from my office." General John L. DeWitt, head, Western Defense Command; before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee.

10. Compare and Contrast: • What are the similarities between Indian Reservations and Japanese internment? • What do we learn? • How do we prevent these things from happening in the future or is it too late?