The United States in World War II

Chapter 25

The Home Front

Section 4

While the war was going on, many Americans were able to start saving money. This was due in part to rationing. It would lead to an economic boom once the war was over.

Not all people were able to do this. More than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (including 60 percent who were American citizens) were forcibly “relocated” from their homes, businesses and farms in the western states. They were sent to Internment Camps.

From: http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_veterans_442nd.asp

• These camps were crowded, tarpaper barracks, in the desolate wind-swept desert.

Families• The uncertainties of war & economic affluence

of the 1940s led to a dramatic rise in marriage• The influx of women into the workforce led to

a new demand for daycare centers & to an increase in child delinquency

• Public health improved as more families had access to doctors, dentists, & prescription drugs

…and high divorce rates

African-Americans• 1 million blacks served in U.S. military but

few saw combat• Discrimination in the workforce led A. Philip

Randolph to pressure FDR to create a Fair Employment Practices Committee

• Continued black migration into the North & West made race relations a national issue

Banned discrimination in defense industries & gov’t

Segregated units…againSegregated units…again

Tuskegee Airmen

Double V: Victory at Home & Abroad

A. Philip Randolph threatened a “March on Washington” to

protest war time discrimination

Other groups, like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), staged sit-ins in restaurants

in major cities to protest discrimination

Mexican-Americans • Mexican-Americans:

– Served in quasi-segregated military units, often in the most hazardous branches

– Mexican-American workers found jobs in SW agriculture & west coast industry

– Faced discrimination, especially during the Zoot Suit Riots

“Zoot Suit” Riot in Los Angeles

Japanese-Americans• Due to Pearl Harbor, many in the U.S. feared

Japanese-Americans were helping prepare for a Japanese invasion in the West

• Civil liberties were restricted:– Issei had their assets frozen– Used racial stereotypes (“Japs”)– In 1942, FDR ordered 112,000 Japanese-

Americans moved to internment camps

Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.