Question

How did a war fought to bring “essential human freedoms” to the world fail to protect the home-front liberties of blacks, Indians, Japanese-Americans, and Mexican-Americans? Answer in 2 paragraphs with 5 sentences min.

Answer 1

• In the State of the Union Address (1941), the President Roosevelt detailed the four freedoms namely “essential human freedoms” as follows.
  • Freedom of speech
  • Freedom of worship
  • Freedom from want
  • Freedom from fear

The failure in protection of home front liberties of the blacks, Indians, Japanese-Americans, and Mexican-Americans can be described with the help of certain important points. In the case of blacks, there was discrimination with GI bill of rights. Also there was the second great migration. In the case of Indians, there were issues of violations of their right to speak their own language and they were even forced off their lands. In the case of Japanese-Americans, there was the issue of every Japanese person seen as a potential spy. In the case of Mexican – Americans, the issues with respect to Bracero program 1942 and zoot suit riots of 1943 were of concern. These issues are described briefly below:

• The second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the Northeast, Midwest and West (1916 to 1970).It was larger than the first great migration. African Americans were even then treated with discrimination. The causes for the second great migration include: economic conditions in black families, growth in industrial production and mechanization in agricultural industry.GI Bill did not exclude African-American (directly) but it actually did for 1.2 million black veterans who served their country during World War II (in segregated ranks). It was meant to help the veterans in postwar life.
• Hundreds of American Indians joined the US armed forces in World War I and World War II. They used words from their tribal languages as weapons (secret battle communication) by which they came to be known as ‘code talkers’. But after that, they were targeted in many ways. They didn’t have the freedom to talk their language, forced off their lands, relocated, or confined to reservations.
• From 1942 to 1945, as per US policy, the people of Japanese descent were interred in isolated camps (Executive order 9066 of February 1942). These people were considered as potential spies. These camps are example of atrocious violations of American civil rights.
• The bracer program was initiated on August 4, 1942 in which United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement. The bracer program guaranteed decent living conditions and a minimum wage for these people. Yet there were violations such as zoot riot. The zoot riot (1943) is a serious of conflict in which the american servicemen attacked Mexican American people who wore zoot suits claiming that those outfit were unpatriotic during World War II.