Executive Order 9066
On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.
Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon—states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Roosevelt’s executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes.
Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people—the majority of whom were American citizens.
Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast.
Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.
Anti-Japanese American Activity
Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.
On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.
In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.
Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.
One-third of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.
Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people—one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii—were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.
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