Executive Order Less Than Two Months After

Executive Order

Less than two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, bringing the United States into World War II, the federal government made a decision to remove many Japanese (the majority of whom were Japanese-American citizens) from the west coast of the U.S., allegedly for security reasons. This paper reviews that decision and the ramifications from Executive Order 9066.

The main justification for Executive Order 9066 was that some Japanese on the west coast allegedly "…posed a threat to national security," according to Roger Daniels, professor of English at The University of Illinois and author of Prisoners without Trial: Japanese-American in World War II. The executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt (9066) caused about 120,000 Japanese (two-thirds were American citizens) to be confined to camps (some called them "concentration camps" but they were in no way death camps such as the Nazis had put in place in Germany) for up to four years.

They were called "internment camps" and Daniels explained that the camps were "…surrounded by barbed wire and by troops whose guns were pointed at the inmates" (Daniels, 1993). Of the 1,862 Japanese who died in those camps "almost all" died of natural causes (some were killed "accidentally" by the guards); but the births in the camps greatly outnumbered the deaths (5,918 babies were born) (Daniels, p. 2).

The ten internment camps included: Amache (Colorado); Gila River (Arkansas); Heart Mountain (Wyoming); Jerome (Arkansas); Manzanar and Tula Lake (California); Minidoka (Idaho); Poston (Arizona); and Topaz (Utah). Daniels asserts that the real reason -- notwithstanding the official government justification -- was because Americans were shocked by the devastating attack in Hawaii and that rage "…created the opportunity for American racists to get their views accepted by the national leadership" (p. 2). The U.S. Congress approved "and implemented everything done to the Japanese" (Daniels, p. 2). Even the Supreme Court approved of the internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans; but one of the dissenters, Justice Black, wrote: "I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life…it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced all the principles set forth in the Constitution…" (www.u-s-history.com).

All Japanese living "…within 100 miles of the Pacific Coast" were ordered to report for transportation to the internment camps, and many were forced to leave all their possessions at home, were forced to "sell their homes, farms, and businesses, often at depressed prices" (www.u-s-history.com). The order included a list of what was acceptable to bring to the camps: bedding and linens (no mattress); toilet articles; extra clothing; knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups; and "essential personal effects for each member of the family" (Daniels, p. 4).

In 1976 President Gerald Ford issues an official federal proclamation that was an apology to the entire Japanese-American community; and four years later (1980) the U.S. Congress published a report that officially denied "…that there had been any military necessity to force Japanese residents and American citizens from their homes" (privacysos.org, a blog by the American Civil Liberties Union). The Congressional report cited "…racism and wartime hysteria" as the main reason this "grave injustice" had been perpetrated on people who happened to be ethnic Japanese. In 1988 Congress agreed to pay reparations to those survivors of the internment camps; each survivor of the camps received $20,000 (privacysos.org).