They were now deemed enemies of the state. Over half of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans, and 22,000 Japanese-Canadians that were sent to the camps had never set foot in Japan. Some of those imprisoned died in the camps due to a lack of proper medical care. Others were killed for disobeying orders. Many of the Japanese-Americans and Canadians were housed in "tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind." These overcrowded accommodations were bleak and surrounded by barbed wire. Although the Jews first arrived in America over 300 years ago and had a certain level of religious freedom, anti-Semitism was socially, and sometimes even legally acceptable. For example, some states in the late 18th century barred …show more content…
During the Holocaust in Europe, a ship of over 900 primarily German Jewish refugees was denied permission to land on U.S. soil, based on the exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924. Only one-third of the passengers, who were forced to return to Europe, survived the genocide of Jews on the continent at the time. Discrimination against Jews was practiced in the workforce, the school system, and by the government by denying many Jewish people jobs, limiting their enrolment, and forbidding them from buying certain types of property.
The media is a major institution in society and plays a critical role. It provides people with definitions about who they are as a nation; it reinforces values and norms; it give them concrete examples of what happens to those who transgress their norms. An inherent part of that historical legacy is the way in which the media represented peoples who were different; different from what was considered acceptable in Canadian society. That difference covered the entire span of peoples - Aboriginal peoples, people of colour, Jews, Ukrainians, etc. Any difference was constructed as a negative sign and imbued with connotations of threat, invasion, pollution and so on. For example,