Persuasive Essay 2 Pages Double Space about
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Session013-WWIIAmericanDilemmas.pptxWWII: American Dilemmas
The Good War and Its Contradictions
Why is WWII known as the “Good War”?
Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms
“In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” (FDR)
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want – economic security
Freedom from fear – reduce the threat of aggression in the world
Freedom from Want at Home
Depression: 30-60% greater unemployment rate for blacks
New Deal: National Recovery Administration (NRA) intended to prevent discrimination in employment and wages - a.k.a. “Negroes Ruin Again” or “Negro Removal Act”
Roosevelt signs Exec. Order 8802 – non-discrimination in defense industry employment – established Comm. on Fair Employment Practices (FEPC)
Ineffectiveness of FEPC – could not desegregate the war industries
Freedom from Fear
9/1941 – 250 whites struck at Packard Motor Car Co. to protest the promotion of 2 blacks
5/42 – 20,000 walked off to protest upgrading of 3 blacks
Housing: Sojourner Truth Project – built in white neighborhood; black defense workers met with violence
1943 Detroit Riot – selective enforcement
Zoot Suit Riot – sailors targeted zoot suiters in L.A.; police arrested 600 Chicano youths as a “preventive” action
Other Contradictions
Japanese American Internment
Military Necessity: rumors of espionage and sabotage
Some 110,000 interned in ten camps (CA, WY, CO, AZ, AK, UT, ID)
2/3 American citizens by birth
Rumors of Sabotage
Japanese plantation workers guided enemy planes to military installations by cutting swaths in sugarcane and pineapple fields
They had parked cars across highways to block the traffic
Japanese had given signals to enemy planes: radio signals
Internment Order
President Roosevelt signs the Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942, giving the Secretary of War the power to prescribe military areas and determined that “the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”
Military Control
Military ordered a curfew for all enemy aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry
Posted orders for evacuation – instructed to bring their bedding, toilet articles, extra clothing, and utensils – no pets
Evacuees sold their possessions – refrigerators, cars, furniture, radios, pianos, and houses
Evacuation
Where did they go?
Assembly Centers
Sent to the control centers – given a tag with a number
Taken to the assembly centers – stockyards, fairgrounds, and race tracks; stables served as temporary housing
Internment Camps
171 trains took them to internment camps: Topaz (UT), Poston and Gila River (AZ), Amache (CO), Jerome and Rohwer (AK), Minidoka (ID), Manzanar and Tule Lake (CA), and Heart Mountain (WY).
Prominent Scholars’ Response
Pearl Buck: American Unity and Asia (1942)
“Every lynching, every race riot, gives joy to Japan. The discriminations...and exclusion of colored labor...are of the greatest aid to our enemy...”
Ruth Benedict: The Races of Mankind (1943)
Hitler’s anti-Semitism required Americans to challenge their own racism in order to “stand unashamed before the Nazis and condemn, without confusion, their doctrines of a Master Race.”
Gunnar Myrdal: American Dilemma (1944)
“Fascism and Nazism are based on a racial superiority dogma, not unlike the old hackneyed American caste theory.”
War for Racial Equality
Diverse ethnic and racial groups responded:
the tenements of the Lower East Side,
the sharecropping farms of Mississippi,
the ghettos of Harlem and South Side Chicago,
the Chinatowns of California and New York,
the barrios of the Southwest,
the reservations of Arizona and New Mexico, and
the sugar plantations of Hawaii.
W.E.B Dubois: From “below deck,” they went to war not only for victory over fascism abroad but also for victory over prejudice at home.
James Thompson, Wichita, KS
Being an American of dark complexion and some 26 years, these questions flash through my mind. “Should I sacrifice my life to live half American? Will these things be better for the next generation in the peace to follow? Would it be demanding too much to demand full citizenship rights in exchange for the sacrificing of my life? Is the kind of America I know worth defending? Will America be a true and pure democracy after the war? Will Colored Americans suffer still the indignities that have been heaped upon them in the past?” These and other questions need answering; I want to know, and I believe every colored American, who is thinking, wants to know...
The V for victory sign is being displayed prominently in all so-called democratic countries which are fighting for victory over aggression, slavery, and tyranny. If this V sign means that to those now engaged in this great conflict, then we colored Americans adopt the double V V for a double victory. The first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within. For surely those who perpetrate these ugly prejudices here are seeking to destroy our democratic form of government just as surely as the Axis forces.
African American
In 1940, there were only 5,000 blacks in an army of 230,000.
By 1944, this figure had risen sharply to 700,000, while some 165,000 serving in the Navy, 5,000 in the Coast Guard, and 17,000 in the Marine Corps.
In addition, 4,000black women served in the Women’s Army Corps.
The 99th Pursuit Squadron and 332nd Fighter Group - an all-black Tuskegee pilots shielded white pilots flying bombers.
On the ground below, African-American soldiers of the 761st Tank Battalion fought in one of the fiercest fights of WWII – the Battle of the Bulge.
Native Americans
“Why Fight the White Man’s War”?
Proud to be American Indians, Navajos recruited as communication specialists – code talkers
8,800 of 60,000 Indian males between ages 21 and 44 in military uniform, a higher rate than for the general pop.
25,000 served in the armed forces
Iwo Jima
Japanese Americans
442nd Infantry Unit – most decorated unit during the war
Dachau – freed Jewish internees in concentration camps
Parents, siblings, and friends (120,000) incarcerated in American camps
Mexican Americans
Braceros (brazos – arms) – California Farm Bureau Federation and other farmers pressured the government to import agricultural workers from Mexico – outlasted the war for 22 years, ending in 1964.
“Agricultural production for democratic causes” – support our troops and allies
Chicano participation in the war: ½ million served in armed forces
10 percent of CA pop. but 20 percent of casualties
