For this assignment, write a four-paragraph exploration of how one of our course theme questions was answered within the time period covered in this module (1840-1900). Make sure that there is breadth in your answer and that you are not focused entirely on one event or topic covered within the module.
Include evidence from our text, a video from our class, and a primary source. You are encouraged to reuse the primary source that you found for this module's primary source analysis, and that will also give you the benefit of helping you pick your theme. Details for each paragraph are included in the linked Google document, which is a template for the assignment. You can either copy it to your Google Drive or download it in MS Word format before completing the assignment and submitting it:(these are the sources we must use in the files tab is the sample and template)
https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/18-introductionhttps://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/17-2-homesteading-dreams-and-realitieshttps://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/patent-application-incandescent-light-bulb
Who gets to be an American? In the decades of the Great Depression and American participation in World War 2, people of color in the United States often were not considered to be American. This is shown by the experiences of African Americans with the New Deal and Japanese Americans during World War 2. In both instances the federal government enacted policies that treated citizens unfairly. African Americans received inequitable benefits from relief programs, and mainland Japanese Americans were placed into internment camps during the war. These injustices were challenged by the people affected and eventually were redressed. African Americans generally did not benefit from early New Deal programs. As noted in the text, they faced “overt discrimination in hiring practices within the federal job programs” (Corbett 26.3). The exclusion of domestic workers from Social Security and farmers who did not own their land (sharecroppers and tenants) from farm support programs also had a disproportionate effect on African Americans. Criticism of these effects led to changes like the use of racial quotas in hiring by the PWA and the creation of a “literacy program that eventually reached over one million African American children” (Corbett 26.3). For Japanese Americans during the war, their loss of property and freedom of movement was abrupt. It was noticed by other Americans, such as reporters in newspapers like the New York Times. Their reporting did not necessarily reflect that loss. For example, in a 1942 article about the arrival of internees at an internment camp in Manzanar, California, the Times notes that earlier inmates welcomed newcomers and “jumped at the opportunity to show them around” (“Widen Evacuation”). The article was focused on the attempts of the inmates to settle in and not their loss of property or freedom of movement. The treatment of Japanese Americans was later recognized as “one of the worst violations of civil liberties in America’s history” (Green). There were challenges during the war, however, as Fred Korematsu appealed the internment order. He lost at the Supreme Court, so the recognition of the injustice of internment was not recognized while it was occurring. African Americans during the New Deal and Japanese Americans during World War 2 shared the experience of not being considered as being American. For Japanese Americans, the federal government took active steps to violate their rights, as those on the mainland were placed in internment camps even if they were citizens. Prior to the war, the federal government’s New Deal programs often discriminated against African Americans. This was shown the exclusion of certain employment categories from Social Security, certain farmers from farm support programs, and the discriminatory hiring practices of federal programs. Both groups of people could fairly say that were not considered American. Works Cited Corbett, P. Scott, et al.. U.S. History. OpenStax, 2014, openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/1-introduction. Accessed 29 February 2020. Green, John. "Crash Course U.S. History: World War II Part 2 - The Homefront." History 313: United States History (since 1877), lrccd.instructure.com/courses/70512/pages/crash-course-u-dot-s-history-world-war-2-par t-2-the-homefront?module_item_id=2419939. Accessed 29 February 2020. “Widen Evacuation of Coast Japanese.” New York Times, 2 April 1942, p. 4.