World War and the Growth of Global Power 279administration to take any action, the rhetoric behind the war effort helped
change American racial attitudes in the postwar years. Swedish sociologist
and author Gunnar Myrdal identified it in the title of his celebrated 1944
book, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Racism. The
United States had been prepared to oppose and defeat fascism, but fighting
fascism abroad meant America was fighting racism abroad. Myrdal wrote, “In
fighting fascism and racism, America had to stand before the world in favor
of racial tolerance and cooperation and of racial equality.” Prophetically,
Myrdal concluded, even before the war was over and a full decade before the
emergence of the modern Civil Rights Movement, that “not since
Reconstruction had there been more reason to anticipate fundamental chang-
es in American race relations.”
The Internment of Japanese Americans
Though the war did not bring the gains African Americans hoped for, the
racial and ethnic discrimination, assault in fact, against Japanese Americans
was worse. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 essentially banned any Japanese
from coming to the U.S. When the war began, only 260,000 Japanese
Americans resided in America. About 150,000 lived in Hawai’i, which was
not yet a state, while the 110,000 others lived on the West Coast, operating
small farms and businesses catering primarily to the Japanese community.
After Pearl Harbor, though, Californians feared that the Japanese in their state
would be loyal to the government in Tokyo rather than the U.S. and wanted
something done. Many people spread rumors that Japanese troops were about
to land in California and unite with Japanese Americans to fight against the
American government. There was a much larger Japanese population in
Hawai’i, but it was a majority of the population, a critical element of the work
force, and far away, so the hysteria was not as great.
On February 19th, 1942, FDR authorized the War Department to exclude
anyone who posed a threat to U.S. security from residing in designated mili-
tary areas, and that meant the Japanese Americans. In many cases, they were
given just 48 hours to sell their property and pack their bags. Over 100,000
Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were actually U.S. citizens, were sent
to 10 “relocation camps” in 6 western states and Arkansas. There, they were
surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, as if they were Prisoners of