While World War II affected all nations and people involves, its effects were more on the minority groups. The major affected minority groups were African Americans, women, and Japanese Americans. To start with, women from all racial groups were affected by the war. The effect was at first negative but in the long run, it turned out positive. According to Chew (2015), women who were usually home makers and caregivers were left to fend for their families when their husbands went out for war.
In America, all men of legal age were recruited into the military force and sent to other countries such as Japan to protect the rights of the country. This way, women who were initially fully dependent on their husbands were left to financially support their families. Women also had to work in the factories and other jobs that were initially occupied by males (Chew, 2015). While this was hard at first as women had to adopt a new lifestyle, it was eventually advantageous. This is because after assuming the responsibilities in all types of factories, in the long run, they learned being productive and dependent, which was advantageous to their personal lives and for the country’s economy.
For the case of African Americans, WWII had both positive and negative impacts. As explained by Wynn (2011), before the war started, Africans Americans had been greatly hit by the Great Depression. With a high rate of unemployment, poor wage rates, a large number of Blacks holding unskilled jobs, poverty was the order of the day and especially for Blacks living in segregated South and with little formal education. Most Blacks had also lost ownership to property; farming land. As a result, WWII was a new opportunity for Blacks to take an active role in the war and thus earn an equal position in the American politics and society.
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In order to have American military united against the enemy, there were not closed ranks thus lessening racial activism. However, even with more opened up opportunities, Blacks still suffered from racial tensions. This followed the migration of over 700,000 African American families from the North to the West to take advantage of defense jobs. A good example is the riot in Detroit that led to deaths and injuries of many Blacks followed by brutality by the place that was targeted more on Blacks rather than on addressing the root cause (Wynn, 2011).
While WWII affected minority groups including women, African Americans, and Japanese Americans, it is arguable that the effect was more on Japanese Americans than on any other minority population. As argued by Arnold (2019), since Japan was against America in the war, it was assumed that even the Japanese in the country were against the American government. As a result, the American government took action on Japanese in Japan as well as American Japanese. This way, around 37,000 first generation Japanese immigrants and close to 75,000 native-born Japanese Americans were moved to relocation centers and guarded heavily by military police.
The internment of Japanese Americans led to economic rivalry and racial prejudice against all Japanese. In addition, farmers and nativist politicians who were interested land owned by Japanese Americans supported the internment move. It is also notable that actions were taken and later blamed on Japanese Americans in order to have them moved. A good example is the Pearl Harbor attack that through the altered government report blamed Japanese Americans. This led to cries by patriotic associations to have Japanese Americans evacuated. This way, Japanese Americans were forced to sell their assets at a loss (Arnold, 2019). They were then tagged and moved into barbed wire-encircled detention camps. Based on this awful treatment, it is arguable that Japanese Americans were affected the most negatively.
References
- Arnold, J. (2019). The enduring vision: A history of the American people. Chapter 25: Americans and a World in Crisis, 1933–1945: 25-5.5 The Internment of Japanese Americans. New York: Cengage Learning.
- Chew, S. A. (2015). Uprooting community: Japanese Mexicans, World War II, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar: University of Arizona Press.
- Wynn, N. A. (2011). African American experience during World War II. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
