Analysis: Executive Order 9066—Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, resulting in the forced relocation and internment of over 110,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, including both immigrants and American citizens. This order, issued in response to fears of espionage and sabotage following the attack on Pearl Harbor, granted military commanders broad powers to designate exclusion zones on the West Coast and remove anyone they considered a threat. Although the order did not specify Japanese Americans, its implementation predominantly targeted them, while few German or Italian Americans faced similar treatment. The internment represented the largest forced migration in U.S. history. This action was fueled by prevailing racial prejudices and wartime hysteria, leading to widespread discrimination against the Japanese American community despite evidence of their loyalty. The establishment of the War Relocation Authority further facilitated this process, overseeing the evacuation and confinement of those affected. The legacy of Executive Order 9066 is a significant reflection on civil liberties and the impact of wartime policies on marginalized communities in America.
Analysis: Executive Order 9066—Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Date: February 19, 1942
Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Genre: law
Summary Overview
Just over two months after the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the relocation of people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast into internment camps for the duration of the war. The order, signed on February 19, 1942, gave the US secretary of war and designated military commanders the power to prescribe military areas and to remove and confine any civilian from such areas. This order made it possible for the Japanese American community to be evacuated from the West Coast, and more than 110,000 legal aliens and American citizens of Japanese ancestry were held in internment camps for the duration of the war. Smaller numbers of resident aliens of Italian and German backgrounds (just over three thousand and eleven thousand, respectively) were also confined, though the same restrictions did not apply to American citizens of Italian or German ancestry. The exclusion of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans from designated military areas, which covered the majority of the West Coast, represents the largest forced migration in US history.
Defining Moment
When the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the people of the United States were shocked, and many reversed their position of neutrality on the war in Europe and the Pacific. For Japanese immigrants (Issei) and their children, first-generation American citizens (Nisei), the consequences were dire. Ever since Japanese immigrants first arrived in the United States in the late nineteenth century, they, like so many other ethnic groups, faced widespread legal and social discrimination. However, many of them had nevertheless achieved degrees of success, establishing farms and other small businesses. By 1940, Japanese Americans owned nearly half a million acres of farmland in California. According to several intelligence reports, the Nisei in particular were seen as model loyal Americans.
The first months of the war went poorly for the American military in the Pacific. With much of the American fleet in shambles after Pearl Harbor, Japan continued its campaign throughout the South Pacific, taking Guam, Wake Island, and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and evicting the Americans, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, from the Philippines. By May 1942, it looked as though little could stop the Japanese navy as it continued across the Pacific. It appeared to many that military action on the West Coast of the United States was becoming increasingly likely.
At the same time as the Japanese navy was sailing across the Pacific, a number of US military and government officials were beginning to express a fundamental distrust in the loyalty not only of the Japanese immigrant population but also of the Nisei, the American-born children of Japanese immigrants. Led most vocally by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and General John L. DeWitt, who was in charge of the Western Defense Command, they argued that the Nisei were more fundamentally Japanese in terms of their loyalties than American, and as such they represented a threat to national security and could not be trusted. Though dissenting voices, such as the Curtis B. Munson, emphasized the loyalty of the Nisei, in the context of the opening of the war with Japan and the public hysteria caused by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the louder voices calling for the more extreme solutions carried the day.
As a result of the increasing racial tensions inherent in the war with Japan, only ten weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which empowered the US secretary of war and certain military commanders to exclude anyone they deemed a threat from any areas they designated as secure national-defense premises. Though the order did not make the focus on the Japanese community explicit, by March 1942, DeWitt had issued a series of proclamations establishing large portions of California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona as military areas and ordering all persons of Japanese descent to be evacuated.
Author Biography
President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933 and helped to guide the United States out of the Great Depression through his New Deal legislation. However, by 1942, Roosevelt faced a number of new challenges. Since 1940, he had allowed the United States to become increasingly involved in the Allied cause, supporting France and England in their battle against Nazi Germany through initiatives such as the lend-lease program, which supplied war matériel to Allied nations. However, a strong isolationist movement with widespread public support had prevented him from involving American troops. When the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, public support for US involvement in World War II changed rapidly. The attack on Pearl Harbor exacerbated the already tense racial situation faced by Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans, as many white Americans called on Roosevelt to do something about the “Japanese problem.” One month after signing Executive Order 9066, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102, establishing the War Relocation Authority to oversee the evacuation and internment of West Coast residents of Japanese descent.
Document Analysis
Executive Order 9066, which ultimately lead to the confinement of approximately 117,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in internment camps for the duration of the war, gave military leaders almost unlimited discretion and power as to the removal of anyone perceived to be a threat from anywhere they designated as a “military area.” Although the order does not name people of Japanese descent explicitly anywhere in the text, its proponent DeWitt had been vocal in his calls for the exclusion of people of Japanese descent from designated military areas.
The order itself begins with a justification, stating that the war effort “requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage.” What it does not do is state why the subsequent internment fulfilled that criterion or what evidence should be provided to deem someone a threat to national security and thus a subject for internment. The order leaves such criteria vague, stating only that “the appropriate Military Commander” may determine areas “from which any or all persons may be excluded.”
Not only does the order give the military commanders such as General DeWitt, who commanded the entire West Coast, broad latitude as to whom they could exclude, it gives them basically unlimited discretion as to how to accomplish the removal of people deemed to be threats, including the use of the military and any other federal resources to fulfill the order. Executive Order 9066 authorizes all federal agencies and independent establishments to assist with the execution of the executive order by “furnishing medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services” to the internees.
The only reference in the order to anyone in particular who might be a target is in the final sentence, where it refers to “alien enemies.” Thus, the order could have been taken to apply to anyone of Japanese, German, or Italian descent living in the United States. However, very few German Americans or Italian Americans faced internment, while the Japanese American community on the West Coast was swept up and confined to camps for the duration of the war.
Glossary
hereunder: under or below this; under authority of this
superseded: to replace power, authority, effectiveness, etc. with another person to thing
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Kumamoto, Bob. “The Search for Spies: American Counterintelligence and the Japanese-American Community 1931–1943.” Amerasia Journal 6 (1979): 45–75. Print.
Muller, Eric L. American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2007. Print.
Takahashi, Jerrold Haruo. Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1997. Print.
Weglyn, Michi Nishiura. Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1996. Print.
Yoo, David K. Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1929–49. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2000. Print.