75th Anniversary of EO 9066 and American Internment of Japanese Americans

A couple of days ago, Amy and I were talking about the internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during the 1940s. One of the things we discussed was how little we learned about this monumental event when we were in high school. She didn’t remember hearing about it. I remembered a little, but no one made a big deal of it. Almost as if to underscore the idea that this is an under-remembered event in U.S history, the 75th anniversary of the signing of EO 9066 — the executive order that kicked off the undertaking — came and went without me realizing it. I don’t think it received much coverage. I know a lot of people complain about America bashing / blame-America-first, but this is one that we should legitimately feel bad about. It was clearly the wrong thing to do, and it happened within living memory.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the executive order that led to the forced relocation and incarceration of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. About 2/3 of them were citizens. It happened in the wake of Pearl Harbor, so security was the ostensible reason for the action. But fear and racism appear to be the real reasons. There was little or no evidence of a threat based on race, and we did not treat the Italians or Germans in nearly the same way. The majority of mainland Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942.

These citizens were forcibly housed in internment (or concentration if you prefer) camps in remote locations, often, featuring “tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind. The spartan facilities met international laws, but left much to be desired. Many camps were built quickly by civilian contractors during the summer of 1942 based on designs for military barracks, making the buildings poorly equipped for cramped family living.” These citizens, who had done nothing wrong, were guarded and often surrounded by barbed-wire.

The citizens who were forced into incarceration often suffered substantial financial losses. They were prevented from taking more than they could carry and forced to leave a great deal behind. The non-Japanese who were allowed to stay on the West Coast were able to profit at their expense. A 1948 act purported to make compensation for these losses available to those who had suffered them, but the paperwork required was unreasonable under the circumstances and did not come close to making the individuals whole.

We should remember this, not just as an occasion of the majority population treating a minority population badly; but also as a time when fear and unreason caused us to do horrible things to our fellow citizens. And we should remind ourselves of what we did so that we don’t do it again.