A Day Which Will Live in Infamy
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On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor. This sudden attack on the United States would alter the life of Japanese Americans on the west coast forever.
Just eleven weeks later, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which granted the military the authority to designate areas of military necessity from which they could ban—or exclude—anyone without trial or hearings. This order in effect sets into motion the exclusion, forced removal, and unconstitutional incarceration of more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast of the United States, two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth.
From Executive Order to Incarceration
Using the authority granted by Executive Order 9066, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt of the Army’s Western Defense Command decided to ban—or exclude—all people of Japanese ancestry from all of California, the western halves of Oregon and Washington, and parts of Arizona. This even included the infirm, orphans, and those of mixed race.
Whole communities were driven from their homes and businesses. They were forced to leave behind all but what they could carry with them. The economic losses were staggering. The emotional toll of being uprooted, accused of being the enemy, and not knowing what future they faced, would last a lifetime.
Japanese Americans were hastily taken from their neighborhoods and first moved by the Army to temporary makeshift detention centers created in existing facilities, such as racetracks and fairgrounds. They would be moved again a few months later into more long term concentration camps that were built in desolate and remote areas of this country surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by military police for the duration of the war. The government claimed this incarceration was necessary for national security because the US was at war but there were no formal criminal charges or trials to determine guilt. The only basis for being excluded from their homes and incarcerated was because of their Japanese ancestry.
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On December 18, 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down decisions for the cases of Korematsu v. United States and Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In the case of Korematsu, in a 6–3 decision the Court sides with the government and rules that the exclusion order is constitutional. But in the case of Endo, the court rules unanimously that the U.S. government cannot detain a citizen who is loyal to the United States. The exclusion orders were no longer valid and inmates are free to leave. But this process is slow because those that are left in camp have to find a place to start life all over. It is not until March 20, 1946 that the Last WRA camp, Tule Lake segregation center, closes. The last 449 inmates are transferred to the Department of Justice camp in Crystal City, TX. In 1948, Crystal City is the last of all Japanese American camps to close
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The Aftermath
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For decades, trauma and feelings of shame silenced most Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated during World War II. Many didn’t even tell their children about what happened and instead tried to focus on rebuilding their lives. The 1960s marked a radical change for many minorities in the US, and this was no different for Japanese Americans. As the civil rights movement swept across the nation and anti-war activists protested the Vietnam War, young Japanese Americans joined with the broader Asian American movement and demanded that Americans of Asian ancestry finally be accepted as true Americans.
They also began to investigate how their community had been discriminated against, and started asking their elders about what had happened during World War II. Through the dedicated efforts of grassroots activists, politicians, and community members, the US government was pressured into investigating the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. From July to December 1981, a special government commission held hearings in ten cities across the country. Former inmates, many of them now elderly, testified—often expressing their rage and grief publicly for the first time—to give a human face to the collective suffering and injustices that the community had endured.
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On August 10, 1988, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides for individual payments of $20,000 to each surviving inmate and a $1.25 billion education fund, among other provisions.
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"Never Again 9066" is a class rooted in the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Students researched and developed visually dynamic artworks, engaging educational materials, and a public display sharing key aspects of Japanese American history and relate them to current issues of civil liberties.