Feb. 19, 2022
By Sebastian Liuba
Staff Writer
The 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 is an important reminder for people never to forget how cruelly Japanese Americans were treated during World War II.
The immediate cause of this executive order was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. This led to the outbreak of war between the United States and Japan. Approximately two months later, on Feb. 19, 1942, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain areas as military zones. This cleared the way for the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens.
Japanese Americans living along the West Coast in what had been designated as an exclusion zone were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in concentration camps located in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Members of the military watched over them from guard towers with rifles always pointed at the incarcerees.
On Dec. 18, 1944, the government announced that all 10 incarceration sites would be closed by the end of 1945. A high-security camp at Tule Lake, California was the last to close in March 1946.
U.S. history teacher Mr. Clifford said Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 out of fear.
“Government officials feared that Japanese Americans could be working as operatives for the Japanese government and were either gathering intelligence or even planning attacks on US targets,” Clifford said.
Not a single Japanese American was ever found guilty of espionage, sabotage or treason during World War II.
He said Roosevelt made the wrong decision in issuing the order.
“The federal government should not have the right to infringe on any citizen’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. What was unique about Roosevelt’s Executive Order was that the U.S. was at war with Japan,” Clifford said.
He said Roosevelt had the authority to issue the executive order because, during an emergency, the president has unique powers that can be used to protect national security.
“The Supreme Court acknowledged this authority in Korematsu v. U.S. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 [in 1976],” Clifford said. “Japanese Americans were taken away from their home and livelihood for approximately three years. Some of the Japanese who were deemed as patriots were allowed to leave the camp and work in the Midwest or East. Many Japanese who were taken lost their homes and/or jobs when they returned.”
In 1983, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity but rather was the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” This led to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act in 1988, which provided a public apology and $20,000 in monetary reparations to those who had been unjustly incarcerated.
“The federal government should not have the right to infringe on any citizen’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.”
Clifford described the camps as cramped. There was little privacy, which made it hard for families to maintain their Japanese traditions and customs.
“Residents lived with family members. Schools were established and children engaged in various activities,” Clifford said.
He said German and Italian immigrants were also viewed as potential threats during World War II, and some were forced to move away from factories or military establishments. He said these groups were not incarcerated in the numbers seen among Japanese Americans because they made up a large portion of the U.S. population and contributed significantly to the American economy.
“Japanese on the West Coast were a smaller population. The nature of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor further emboldened members of the government to use more drastic actions when dealing with Japanese Americans,” Clifford said.
English teacher Dr. DiMaggio taught about Japanese American incarceration last year in her English II-Honors classes. Her students read “Farewell to Manzanar,” a memoir by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, about her family’s experiences at Manzanar, a concentration camp in California’s Owens Valley.
“Houston wrote ‘Farewell to Manzanar’ because she wanted to share her experiences with internment with the world, particularly because it is a topic that has not been publicized,” DiMaggio said.
She said it is important for Americans to know about injustices the United States has been involved with.
“The idea of our country’s repeated offenses against our own people and the quickness of people [and] governments to categorize others as enemies… and how people persevere in inhumane situations stand out to me as important motifs,” DiMaggio said.
DiMaggio said her knowledge about internment grew as a result of her exposure to Houston’s memoir.
“After reading the book, I knew more about the personal experiences of those affected by Japanese internment. Personal experiences always humanize experiences and make them more real,” DiMaggio said.
Junior Christopher Paskas read “ Farewell to Manzanar” last year in DiMaggio’s class.
He said Houston wrote “Farewell to Manzanar” because her incarceration was a significant experience that impacted her throughout adulthood.
“The book showed how something so long ago can still affect her now,” Paskas said.
He said the part of the memoir that stood out to him the most was when Houston described her arrival at Manzanar.
“Families sent there didn’t know how long they would be imprisoned,” Paskas said.
He said the memoir portrayed the long-term effects of incarceration.
“The prison camps had both a mental and physical impact on every prisoner, and after being released, families lost everything they worked for, completely ruining their American Dream,” said Paskas.
