FDR today 1942 started process leading to internment of people “of Japanese ancestry”: #AnselAdams

On February 19, 1942, in response to intense lobbying following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order (EO) 9066, which mandated the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. During 1942, the federal government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans (the majority of whom were U.S. citizens and half of whom were children) out of their homes, schools, jobs, and businesses, often on less than a week’s notice. Evacuees lived for several months in horse stables, livestock pavilions, and temporary barracks at “Assembly Centers” before being moved to ten hastily built “internment camps” across six Western states for the remainder of WWII.

Four decades later, archival research by the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded in 1983 that the mass exclusion, removal and detention of Japanese Americans were caused not by “military necessity” but by “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

It is painful to realize that the President who signed laws we still proudly implement here at the Department, such as the Social Security Act, National Apprenticeship Act, and Fair Labor Standards Act, also wrongfully imprisoned over 120,000 innocent civilians. But those who were wronged, their families, and the country as a whole deserve to have a truthful accounting. From that place of truth and acknowledgment, we can ensure that as a country, and as a government, we do better. We can use this painful episode in our nation’s history as an opportunity to pledge our commitment and rededication to the principles our country was founded upon: freedom, justice, fairness, and equality.

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of EO 9066, I encourage you to attend the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH) virtual events scheduled for this weekend (Friday, February 18 – Sunday, February 20): https://americanhistory.si.edu/day-of-remembrance. This program is inspired by the Smithsonian’s 2020 initiative, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past, with the goal of “using history and reconciliation to contextualize and transform our understandings and responses to race and racism.”

For an introduction to the historical experiences of Japanese Americans and implications for today, see the NMAH digital exhibit, A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution and the NMAH Japanese American Incarceration Era Collection. {You can also visit the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II near he U.S. Capitol.}

Executive Order 9066

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Termination, apology, and redress



President Gerald Ford signs a proclamation confirming the termination of Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1976)

In December 1944, President Roosevelt suspended Executive Order 9066, forced to do so by the Supreme Court decision Ex parte Endo. Detainees were released, often to resettlement facilities and temporary housing, and the camps were shut down by 1946.

In the years after the war, the interned Japanese Americans had to rebuild their lives but had lost a lot. United States citizens and long-time residents who had been incarcerated lost their personal liberties; many also lost their homes, businesses, property, and savings. Individuals born in Japan were not allowed to become naturalized US citizens until after passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

On February 19, 1976, President Gerald Ford signed a proclamation formally terminating Executive Order 9066 and apologizing for the internment, stated: "We now know what we should have known then — not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans have been and continue to be written in history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation."

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation to create the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). The CWRIC was appointed to conduct an official governmental study of Executive Order 9066, related wartime orders, and their effects on Japanese Americans in the West and Alaska Natives in the Pribilof Islands.

In December 1982, the CWRIC issued its findings in Personal Justice Denied, concluding that the incarceration of Japanese Americans had not been justified by military necessity. The report determined that the decision to incarcerate was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership". The Commission recommended legislative remedies consisting of an official Government apology and redress payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors; a public education fund was set up to help ensure that this would not happen again (Pub.L. 100–383).

On August 10, 1988, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, based on the CWRIC recommendations, was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. On November 21, 1989, George H. W. Bush signed an appropriation bill authorizing payments to be paid out between 1990 and 1998. In 1990, surviving internees began to receive individual redress payments and a letter of apology. This bill applied to the Japanese Americans and to members of the Aleut people inhabiting the strategic Aleutian islands in Alaska who had also been relocated.

{snip}

For #DayofRemembrance, essays on Executive Order 9066 from Alyssa Yamamoto, David Inoue (
@JACL_National
), Lori Bannai (prof emeritus,
@seattleulaw
), Shirley Ann Higuchi (
@HiguchiJD
,
@HeartMountainWY
) + intro from Managing Editor
@megancorrarino
.

#EO9066

justsecurity.org
Introduction to Just Security’s Series on Executive Order 9066, 80 Years After Signing
A collection of Just Security essays reflect on national security policy past and present, 80 years after Order that