Draw Conclusions from the Evidence for Thinking through Sources 23
Instructions
This exercise asks you to assess the relationship between conclusions and evidence. Identify which of the following conclusions are supported by the specific piece of evidence. Click “yes” for those pieces of evidence that support the conclusion and “no” for those that do not.
Conclusion A
Informed largely by widely held and powerful anti-Asian stereotypes, American leaders determined that Japanese Americans constituted a wartime threat and implemented Executive Order 9066, which subjected Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to civil restrictions and evacuation to relocation camps.
Question
23.19
Evidence 1: Describing the militaristic regime in Japan: “In Japan, they hid behind the uniform of the Army. But really they belonged to a sinister secret society. Their symbol was a black dragon.” —Document 23.1: Why We Fight: Prelude to War Transcript
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Question
23.20
Evidence 2: “Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry Living in the Following Area: . . . Pursuant to the provisions of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, this Headquarters, dated May 3, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above area by 12 o’clock noon, P.W.T., Saturday, May 9, 1942.”—Document 23.2: Poster to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry
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Question
23.21
Evidence 3: “We cannot close our eyes to the fact, demonstrated by experience, that, in time of war, residents having ethnic affiliations with an invading enemy may be a greater source of danger than those of a different ancestry. Nor can we deny that Congress, and the military authorities acting with its authorization, have constitutional power to appraise the danger in the light of facts of public notoriety.”—Document 23.3: Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, Hirabayashi v. United States Decision
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Question
23.22
Evidence 4: “That this forced exclusion was the result in good measure of this erroneous assumption of racial guilt, rather than bona fide military necessity is evidenced by the Commanding General’s Final Report on the evacuation from the Pacific Coast area. In it, he refers to all individuals of Japanese descent as ‘subversive,’ as belonging to ‘an enemy race’ whose ‘racial strains are undiluted,’ and as constituting ‘over 112,000 potential enemies . . . at large today’ along the Pacific Coast.”—Document 23.4: Justice Frank Murphy, Dissent in Korematsu v. United States
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Conclusion B
In response to legal challenges to Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the policy, demonstrating the fragility of civil rights during wartime.
Question
23.23
Evidence 1: “In Japan, they had lots of names for [the new order]—The New Era of Enlightenment, the New Order in Asia, the Co-Prosperity Sphere. But no matter how you slice it, it was just plan old-fashioned militaristic imperialism. The Japs would get the prosperity, and the others would get the crow.”—Document 23.1: Why We Fight: Prelude to War Transcript
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Question
23.24
Evidence 2: “No Japanese person living in the above area will be permitted to change residence after 12 o’clock noon, P.W.T., Sunday, May 3, 1942, without obtaining special permission from the representative of the Commanding General, Northern California Sector, at the Civil Control Station located at: 920 ‘C’ Street, Hayward, California. Such permits will only be granted for the purpose of uniting members of a family, or in cases of grave emergency.”—Document 23.2: Poster to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry
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Question
23.25
Evidence 3: “The adoption by Government, in the crisis of war and of threatened invasion, of measures for the public safety, based upon the recognition of facts and circumstances which indicate that a group of one national extraction may menace that safety more than others, is not wholly beyond the limits of the Constitution, and is not to be condemned merely because, in other and in most circumstances, racial distinctions are irrelevant.”—Document 23.3: Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, Hirabayashi v. United States Decision
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Question
23.26
Evidence 4: “I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States.”—Document 23.4: Justice Frank Murphy, Dissent in Korematsu v. United States
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Conclusion C
Executive Order 9066 shocked Japanese Americans and made them fear additional attacks on their rights, but they cooperated with the plan and worked to survive the relocation with their families and their self-worth intact.
Question
23.27
Evidence 1: “The Following Instructions Must Be Observed:1. A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, or the person in whose name most of the property is held, and each individual living alone, will report to the Civil Control Station to receive further instructions. This must be done between 8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on Monday, May 4, 1942, or between 9:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 5, 1942.2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property:(a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family;(b) Toilet articles for each member of the family;(c) Extra clothing for each member of the family;(d) Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family;(e) Essential personal effects for each member of the family.”
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Question
23.28
Evidence 2: “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are, by their very nature, odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. For that reason, legislative classification or discrimination based on race alone has often been held to be a denial of equal protection. We may assume that these considerations would be controlling here were it not for the fact that the danger of espionage and sabotage, in time of war and of threatened invasion, calls upon the military authorities to scrutinize every relevant fact bearing on the loyalty of populations in the danger areas.”—Document 23.3: Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, Hirabayashi v. United States Decision
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Question
23.29
Evidence 3: “Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support. Thus, like other claims conflicting with the asserted constitutional rights of the individual, the military claim must subject itself to the judicial process of having its reasonableness determined and its conflicts with other interests reconciled.”—Document 23.4: Justice Frank Murphy, Dissent in Korematsu v. United States
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Question
23.30
Evidence 4: “The S.F. Registrar has made a statement that we will be sent absentee ballots to which Mr. James Fisk of the Joint Immigration Committee protests greatly. Tomorrow I am going to carry a petition around to protest against their protests. I think that they are stabbing us in the back and that there should be a separate concentration camp for these so-called Americans. They are a lot more dangerous than the Japanese in the U.S. ever will or have been.”—Document 23.5: Charles Kikuchi, Internment Diary
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Thinking through Sources forExploring American Histories, Volume 2Printed Page 182