Anti-Japanese Propaganda

During WWII, most white Americans began to hate Japanese-Americans and saw them as the enemy. For this reason, Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were interned in camps and kept there for the duration of the war. This was the result of Executive Order 9066, which ordered all people of Japanese descent to The Japanese were given the derogatory name "Japs" and generally depicted as similar to rats, implying that they were nothing more than disease-ridden animals. The military had their troops learn how to recognize the differences between the Chinese and the Japanese, as the Chinese were considered allies. Clearly, this was based on stereotypes and tended to be rather inaccurate, but nonetheless, it was part of training for some troops. Federal government officials often spread this propaganda. The above image, for example, was distributed by the navy and clearly represents the Japanese as rats who are trying to hurt the United States. Japanese-Americans and the Japanese were used as scapegoats and blamed for the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as all of the war in the Pacific.