Eleanor Roosevelt Was Against Internment Camps
Eleanor Roosevelt firmly believed that America was a place where people of all cultures could come together as one people and that America could create a model of fairness to people of all nationalities. She believed that all Americans deserved equal rights and that it was the duty of America to prove that humanity could leave free of anti-racial, anti-Semitic and anti-religious feelings in order to pave the way for a better a future. Just ten days after Pearl Harbor she spoke out to the American people and urged them not to give into their fear.
She gave her husband the same advice that she told the American people, that “if out of the present chaos there is ever to come a world where free people live together peacefully, in Europe, Asia or the Americas, we shall have to furnish the pattern.” Unfortunately, this was one time that President Roosevelt would not defer to the advice of his wife, but would rather succumb to the fear and the pressure of the time. FDR did sign the order that forced all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast to be placed in internment camps.
Once the order was signed Eleanor was placed in the hard position of having to publicly support her husband’s decision, regardless of what she thought privately. Her tacit acceptance of the order did not last long and she eventually found a way to do what she could to speak out against the treatment of American citizens. In 1943 she made a very public visit to the Gila River Detention Center in Arizona. She made sure that she was photographed in the presence of the internees in the hopes that it would help combat racism.
She also pushed her husband to meet with the director of the War Relocation Authority who was calling for the release of the detainees. After her visit, she gave an interview with the Los Angeles Times in which she stated that the sooner the camps were closed the better. Despite her efforts and those who supported her, the camps remained open until December 1944.