Date of Graduation
Spring 2020
Degree
Master of Arts in History
Department
History
Committee Chair
Sarah Panzer
Abstract
During the Second World War, over 120,000 Japanese American citizens were held in intern- ment for much of the conflict. The United States government supported this action by claiming military necessity required removal of all West Coast Japanese Americans as a national security threat. However, this process had little to do with military necessity and was set in motion dec- ades before by the rhetoric of the anti-Japanese movement, which through numerous works out- lined Japanese Americans as a military threat. This thesis, through review of significant pub- lished documents, argues that a multitude of writers representing a wide array of Americans sup- ported this concept and actively presented Japanese Americans to be a military threat. Together, this movement set the needed preconditions for eventual mass military internment.
Keywords
Anti-Japanese Movement, ‘Yellow Peril, ’ ‘Japanese Problem, ’ Military Necessity, ' Japanese American Internment
Subject Categories
Military History | Other American Studies
Copyright
© Charlie DeWitt
Recommended Citation
DeWitt, Charlie, "Japanese American Internment During the Second World War Through the Preconditioning of Anti-Japanese Rhetoric Emphasizing Military Threat Between 1898 and 1941 and Examination of Military Necessity" (2020). MSU Graduate Theses. 3497.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3497
