http://search.gallery.yahoo.com/search/corbis?p=/Atomic+Bomb

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 started a brutal war of attrition in the Pacific, which lasted until August of 1945 and which was fueled and sustained, in large part, by the racial prejudices of the time. While the United States claimed to be fighting a just war with high moral standards, the government nonetheless relocated many Japanese citizens to internment camps, the army would not accept certain raves as suitable for combat, and the Jim Crow laws still dominated the South.
The extent to which race was key to the conduct of the war can be seen by the difference between the two enemies with whom the United States was engaged. In the European theater, Americans viewed the Nazis, not the German people, as their enemy, but in the Pacific theater, the whole Japanese race was targeted as the enemy.
In War Without Mercy, historian John Dower has revealed the extent to which race was intrinsic in the Pacific war. In the following pages, I build on Dower's work and examine the various media through which the Japanese were caricatured and diminished through racial prejudices and stereotypes.

http://education.nebrwesleyan.edu/eisenhower/

parasites/northeastpage/safarik/internmentpage

Michael Simpson Dillon

This exhibit and museum were created during an introductory seminar on the Asia-Pacific War, taught at Wake Forest University during the spring semester 2002.

The material and opinions are those of their respective authors and do not represent the views of the University or the Department of History.