Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to "relocation centers" further inland—resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans." Two-thirds of the 125,000 people displaced were U.S. citizens.
During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent in ten concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens. These actions were initiated by Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, following the outbreak of war with the Empire of Japan in December 1941. About 127,000 Japanese Americans then lived in the continental U.S., of which about 112,000 lived on the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei and Sansei. The rest were Issei immigrants born in Japan, who were ineligible for citizenship. In Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated.
Henry Lewis Stimson was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He served as Secretary of War (1911–1913) under President William Howard Taft, Secretary of State (1929–1933) under President Herbert Hoover, and again Secretary of War (1940–1945) under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, overseeing American military efforts during World War II.
The Hull note, officially the Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement Between the United States and Japan, was the final proposal delivered to the Empire of Japan by the United States of America before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese declaration of war. The note, delivered on November 26, 1941, is named for Secretary of State Cordell Hull. It was the diplomatic culmination of a series of events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Notably, its text repeats previous American demands for Japan to withdraw from China and from French Indochina. No further American proposals were made before the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the US government had received intelligence that Japan was preparing an invasion of Thailand.
Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during Nuremberg trials following World War II and a United States circuit judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
William Franklin Knox was an American politician, soldier, newspaper editor, and publisher. He was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936 and Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt during most of World War II. On December 7, 1941, Knox, flanked by his assistant John O’Keefe, walked into Roosevelt's White House study around 1:30 pm EST, and announced that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was a United States government agency established to handle the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It also operated the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York, which was the only refugee camp set up in the United States for refugees from Europe. The agency was created by Executive Order 9102 on March 18, 1942, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was terminated June 26, 1946, by order of President Harry S. Truman.
Various unproven conspiracy theories allege that U.S. government officials had advance knowledge of Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Ever since the Japanese attack, there has been debate as to why and how the United States was caught off guard, and how much and when American officials knew of Japanese plans for an attack. In September 1944, John T. Flynn, a co-founder of the non-interventionist America First Committee, launched a Pearl Harbor counter-narrative when he published a 46-page booklet entitled The Truth about Pearl Harbor, arguing that Roosevelt and his inner circle had been plotting to provoke the Japanese into an attack on the U.S. and thus provide a reason to enter the war since January 1941. Flynn was a political opponent of Roosevelt, and had strongly criticized him for both his domestic and foreign policies. In 1944, a congressional investigation conducted by both major political parties provided little by way of vindication for his assertions, despite Flynn being chief investigator.
The Japanese American Citizens League is an Asian American civil rights charity, headquartered in San Francisco, with regional chapters across the United States.
The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was located within the Gila River Indian Reservation near the town of Sacaton, about 30 mi (48.3 km) southeast of Phoenix. With a peak population of 13,348, it became the fourth-largest city in the state, operating from May 1942 to November 16, 1945.
The "Day of Infamy" speech, sometimes referred to as the Infamy speech, was a speech delivered by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, to a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941. The previous day, the Empire of Japan attacked United States military bases at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and declared war on the United States and the British Empire. The speech is known for its famed first line, which opened with Roosevelt saying, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy..."
Japanese Peruvians are Peruvian citizens of Japanese origin or ancestry.
December 7th is a 1943 propaganda documentary film produced by the US Navy and directed by Gregg Toland and John Ford, about the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the event which sparked the Pacific War and American involvement in World War II. Toland was also the film's cinematographer and co-writer. The original version of this film, with a running time of 82 minutes, was not released but was retained by the National Archives. An edited version of 32 minutes length, which removed a long introductory segment and a shorter epilogue, was given limited release to specific audiences but won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1944. This is the only film Toland ever worked on for which he received a director credit.
On February 19, 1942, shortly after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced removal of over 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and into internment camps for the duration of the war. The personal rights, liberties, and freedoms of Japanese Americans were suspended by the United States government. In the "relocation centers", internees were housed in tar-papered army-style barracks. Some individuals who protested their treatment were sent to a special camp at Tule Lake, California.
The following article focuses on the movement to obtain redress for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and significant court cases that have shaped civil and human rights for Japanese Americans and other minorities. These cases have been the cause and/or catalyst to many changes in United States law. But mainly, they have resulted in adjusting the perception of Asian immigrants in the eyes of the American government.
Karl Robin Bendetsen was an American politician and military officer who served in the Washington Army National Guard during World War II and later as the United States Under Secretary of the Army. Bendetsen is remembered primarily for his role as an architect of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, a role he tried to downplay in later years.
Western Defense Command (WDC) was established on 17 March 1941 as the command formation of the United States Army responsible for coordinating the defense of the Pacific Coast region of the United States during World War II. A second major responsibility was the training of soldiers prior to their deployment overseas. The first Commanding General of WDC was Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, who continued on in command of the Fourth U.S. Army. WDC headquarters were co-located at the existing Fourth Army headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco. WDC's operational region covered the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, and the Territory of Alaska. Until 11 December 1941, the command was little more than a planning agency. On that date the Army coast defense, antiaircraft, and fighter assets on the West Coast were placed under the command, which until 20 March 1942 was known as the Western Theater of Operations, then reverted to the previous name. From 11 December 1941 until 1 November 1943, Alaska Defense Command was controlled through WDC.
Michi Nishiura Weglyn was an American author. Her book Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, which was published in 1976, helped fuel a movement leading to reparations for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. She was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for this work in 1977. Weglyn was also a vocal advocate for those denied redress under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and for the more than 2,200 Japanese Peruvians who were taken from their homes by the U.S. government and used in a hostage exchange program with Japan.
The Manzanar Children's Village was an orphanage for children of Japanese ancestry incarcerated during World War II as a result of Executive Order 9066, under which President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States. Contained within the Manzanar concentration camp in Owens Valley, California, it held a total of 101 orphans from June 1942 to September 1945.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has received substantial attention in popular culture in multiple media and cultural formats including film, architecture, memorial statues, non-fiction writing, historical writing, and historical fiction. Today, the USS Arizona Memorial on the island of Oahu honors the dead. Visitors to the memorial reach it via boats from the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The memorial was designed by Alfred Preis, and has a sagging center but strong and vigorous ends, expressing "initial defeat and ultimate victory". It commemorates all lives lost on December 7, 1941.