Military Necessity or Racism? The Internments of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

Abstract

The aim of my thesis is to show that the so often mentioned "military necessity" was not the main reason for the relocation of the whole Japanese American population of the United States. Instead, economic factors and a long history of racism could finally flourish in a wartime situation, which, combined with a great amount of hysteria, turned out to be a fertile environment for the various political and regional pressure groups to implement their long-planned strategies of removing Japanese Americans from the West Coast area.