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Experiences of Japanese Americans at Jerome and Rohwer

The film is about the history of the Japanese Americans who have stayed at Jerome and Rohwer camps for many years now. It gives an encounter of how events escalated from one point to another (Niiya 2). This paper reviews the film, “Time of Fear,” which tells the story of over 15000, women, men, and children who were relocated by the government to the camps in the southeast Arkansas. Southeast Arkansas is considered one of the racially segregated and poorest regions in the United States.

A narrator states how all those people ended up at the camp, and this can be traced about 70 years ago. Families were forcefully ejected from their homes in Los Angles because of the attack that had happened at Pearl Harbour, which dragged the United States into World War II. The bomber was suspected to be of Japanese origin, and so all the Japanese became the target of victimization. At gunpoint, on a Sunday morning, U.S soldiers swept through homes evicting the homeowners who were forced to go to southeast Arkansas places of Jerome and Rohwer where camps were established. This is history that is still fresh in the minds of the victims as the narrator expresses in pain (Niiya 19).

The camps were used as isolation areas during the war for the Japanese American. Life in these camps was not as it is in other regions. Jerome was sub-divided into 50 different blocks that were guarded by army officers and had a barbed wire fence all around, with seven watchtowers in the camp. This made it very hard for the Japanese Americans, and they ended up living like prisoners. From the video, it is revealed that the Japanese Americans found themselves in a very exceptional category. That is because they were neither coloured nor white, which made the local community to be violent towards them (Niiya 25). That created tension amongst the locals and the Japanese Americans.

The Japanese Americans spent most of the day at the farms, sawmills and making soap. The camps were small and provided little room for movement and freedom; they made people or families share a room that could not even be shared by one family. There was hardship at these camps, and anyone that left the camp without permission was punished. With this population, the congestion at the camp led to the breakout of diseases and sicknesses on various occasions. For example, in 1944, there was a breakout of influenza, which spread throughout the camp for several months. However, treatment was offered at the hospital at Jerome, which helped contain the influenza.

The different interview in the video revealed that as time passed the conditions at the camp changed and people were finally allowed to leave with permission to go and look for jobs. However, most people were not for the idea, as they were not sure of a place to stay and food (Niiya 33). The other challenge was that the clearance tool a longer time and some people lost interest in leaving.

In conclusion, World War II had a very negative impact on the Japanese American of that time as they suffered the consequence of the war. They were surrounded and sent to a camp that was under tight military guard. However, the camps were later changed and used for German prisoners during the war.

Works Cited

Niiya, Brian. Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1993. Print.