1942
Roosevelt signs
Executive Order 9066
Ten
weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all
people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” The military in
turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of
Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area.
By
June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment
camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For
the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured
extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military
guards.
On
December 17, 1944, U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issued Public Proclamation
No. 21, declaring that, effective January 2, 1945, Japanese-American “evacuees”
from the West Coast could return to their homes. During the course of World War
II, 10 Americans were convicted of spying for Japan, but not one of them was of
Japanese ancestry.
In
1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to recompense each surviving
internee with a tax-free check for $20,000 and an apology from the U.S.
government.