Good Example Of Book Review On A Review On Prisoners Without Trial By Roger Daniels

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The book entitled ‘Prisoners without Trial’, authored by Roger Daniels described the unfair treatment of the Americans against the Japanese during World War II. According to Daniels, this event marked the disgraceful period in the American History where more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans experienced incarceration and dumped into internment camps . The author emphasized that this unfortunate event is not a blunder in the judgment of the American government . He traced back that this kind of obvious discrimination started when the Chinese arrived in the Pacific Coast to provide assistance in building railroads and eventually render their services through the gold fields of the California state. Because of the difference in skin color, the Americans found the Chinese as threat to the racial integrity of their nation .
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this discrimination transferred to the Japanese especially those who are from the West Coast. Even if they are American citizens, the Japanese experienced the relocation to one of those internment camps in the different parts of the country. More than 5,000 men experienced arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others voluntarily brought themselves to the exclusion district. This relocation, which eventually resulted to internment, became effective when President Roosevelt promulgated the Executive Order 9066. The author argues that this unfair treatment is a scheme to interrupt the war efforts as well as to lessen the competition among the Americans and the Japanese.
In this book, the author described the experiences of the hopeless Japanese while in the internment camp and how their traditions fell and dishonored as a result of the American prejudice. As described in the book, the treatment among the Japanese turned out to appear as mechanical and inhumane. Normal living of their lives became impossible and disrupted. There was a significant and deep damage among family traditions and structures. While in camp, the handling of Japanese families was like prisoners. There is a designated tag and number for each family during their relocation with the Army . Most of the Japanese families experience different sickness and diseases because of unsanitized and over-crowded living quarters. The author also put an emphasis that the only focus of the Japanese families in the internment camp is how to survive living each day. According to him, such experience is not a battle of barb wire against the Americans but a fight for survival . Despite of these difficulties and unfortunate events, the Japanese still hoped that they will eventually leave the camp and return to their normal lives. The Japanese families went through social problems while following the rules defined inside the camp. The Americans disregard the honor and respect of the children of the Japanese families to their older Issei or immigrants by giving them power and authority within the camp. Also, more than 3,000 Japanese-Americans joined the military and the armed forces from the camp. In fact, the famous 442nd Regimental Combat group composed of all Japanese won several wars in Italy and Germany. According to the author, such insolence is an obvious infringement to the self-respect of the Japanese-Americans . Throughout the lifetime of the Japanese in internment camp, the author assessed that this kind of segregation and prejudice intensified because of political and military reasons. From the author’s point of view, this movement will prevent the Japanese during the war to retaliate, thus, have control over the people within the United States. The Japanese-Americans went through extreme curfew hours and restrictions including the amount of money that each individual should keep and manage in the bank per month. While these are all happening, there were no incidents of retaliation and civil movements that took place coming from the Japanese-Americans.
The incarceration lasted for four years. The book cited the fight for release of the Japanese-Americans through the conviction of Japanese named Korematsu who had plastic surgeries to surpass the internment camp. After running away, the governments caught him, but fought back and file suit case against the United States government. This case eventually triggered the fight over the freedom of the Japanese Americans and led to the upholding of the Supreme Court to end the internment. The Supreme Court started looking at the case from the perspective of constitutionality of the incarceration two years after the forced evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. The loyal Japanese, together with their Nisei, left the camp and the closing of the camp took place in June 1946 led by the War Relocation Authority. In 1983, the overturning of the conviction against Korematsu occurred through the fight of a law professor. The case highlighted that the military forces and movement is not necessary to protect the national security and use it to protect the government actions from close investigation. In 1989, the United States admitted to a racial partiality and conceded to its biggest mistake in the history of the country.
Although it took several years for the Japanese to acquire their freedom, Daniels described the there was a fear and doubt among the Japanese to leave the camp and re-enter through the communities of the Americans. This undeniably unmerited treatment among the Japanese destroyed their lives because of the cruel treat of their government. Every individual kept in the camp had to start their lives over again and perceptibly became challenging for them.

Works Cited

Daniels, R.. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Book.