Analysis: To All Persons of Japanese Ancestry

Date: May 3, 1942

Author: John L. DeWitt

Genre: legal document

Summary Overview

In February 1942, during the opening months of America's involvement in World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which specified that any persons or group of people that might be considered likely to commit acts of espionage could be relocated out of sensitive areas, mostly along the West Coast of the United States. Though general in wording, those who pushed for the order, such as General John L. DeWitt, were specific in their intent: the removal of all people from Japan or of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast and their placement into internment camps for the duration of the war. By May 1942, the facilities were ready and the evacuation orders went up, giving the entire Japanese American community a few days in which to wrap up their affairs and report for relocation to internment camps, which were scattered across some of the most desolate areas of the American West.

Defining Moment

Immigrants from Japan had faced discrimination ever since they first arrived on America's shores in the 1860s. Though many, by the early 1940s, owned small businesses and farms, they were still viewed with suspicion, especially in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Despite the fact that the children of Japanese immigrants (Nisei) had largely done everything they could to fit in to their homeland and become model citizens, when World War II broke out they were immediately viewed by many in the American military and government as a threat. Both Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, argued that the loyalty of the Nisei could not be trusted in the event of a Japanese invasion of the mainland United States, and that they were likely to aid and commit espionage on behalf of the Japanese military.

In response to this perceived threat, President Franklin D. Roosevelt followed Knox and DeWitt's recommendation, and issued Executive Order 9066, which would direct about 117,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans to report to detention camps for the duration of the war. DeWitt in particular, as the military commander of the entire West Coast, was able to exercise almost unlimited authority to remove anyone perceived as a threat. While the order did not specifically call out Japanese Americans, they were clearly the target, as no such wholesale removals of German Americans or Italian Americans were conducted (although German and Italian Americans were interned on a smaller scale around the country). DeWitt had made no secret of his fundamental distrust of Japanese Americans. Although President Roosevelt had received a report from Curtis B. Munson on December 20, 1941, that discussed the loyalty of the Nisei, the voices of the military commanders carried more weight during the early stages of the war, and the order authorizing DeWitt to detain the entire Japanese American community was issued.

Ten relocation (or internment) camps were set up throughout the West, nearly always in isolated areas far from the cities that were the focus of wartime production in the region. Once the facilities were ready, DeWitt wasted no time in carrying out the order. Japanese Americans were given very little time to settle their affairs, and had to leave everything for which they had worked their entire lives behind. There was no assessment of the loyalty of individual Japanese Americans, and they were not charged with any crime that would justify their detention. Rather, in a clear violation of their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, they were summarily transported to the camps and detained until the conclusion of the war.

Author Biography

General John L. DeWitt, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and World War I, was commanding general of the Western Defense Command as America entered World War II, which placed him in charge of the security of the factories and facilities in the American West that provided much of America's war matériel. Between the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and February 1942, DeWitt discussed several different ideas for securing his region from possible acts of espionage, but eventually settled upon the wholesale exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the region. He considered the Nisei an especially vital threat, as he assumed they would ally with and assist the Japanese military should they stage an invasion of the US mainland. He recommended removal to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who issued Executive Order 9066, which gave DeWitt the authority to remove all Japanese Americans from the coastal areas of California, Oregon, and Washington.

Document Analysis

Executive Order 9066 gave military leaders such as General DeWitt broad authority to remove whomever they perceived to be liable to commit acts of espionage or sabotage from any region they deemed essential to the war effort. The order did not require any concrete justification for the removal, and it gave military leaders equally broad discretion to determine how to deal with such detainees. That latitude can be seen in the evacuation order that DeWitt issued on May 3, 1942, “to all persons of Japanese ancestry” in the region around the San Francisco Bay area.

The initial part of the evacuation order details the geographic limits of the order and gives information about what Japanese Americans are supposed to do in the interim between the date of the order, May 3, 1942, and when they report for evacuation, at noon on May 9, 1942. Evacuees had until then to put their affairs in order. However, Japanese Americans were not to change residences without special permission, which would “only be granted for the purpose of uniting members of a family, or in cases of grave emergency.” The Civil Control Station, which oversaw the evacuation, was to provide assistance to Japanese Americans in dealing with their property during the evacuation and otherwise help unite families so as to ensure that they were evacuated together.

The order specified that one representative from each family was to report to the Civil Control Station for instructions. The order then lists the types of personal property Japanese Americans could bring with them to the camps: bedding, but not mattresses; toiletries; extra clothes, eating utensils and plates, and any other personal effects deemed essential. The next sentence was telling: “The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.” The evacuees were not permitted to bring more than they could personally carry. Nothing could be shipped to the evacuees, and all personal property too large to be carried on their person to the camps would be stored by the federal government for the duration of the war.

Though a utilitarian document, the details of the order demonstrate the radical nature of the government's action—the wholesale detention and stripping of the constitutional rights of a group of people based entirely on their ethnicity rather than on any actions they had taken or specific cause to believe that they might assist the enemy.

Glossary

Presidio: a garrisoned fort; military post

pursuant: proceeding after; following

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Muller, Eric L. American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2007. Print.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Rev. ed. Boston: Back Bay, 1998. 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. Champagne: U of Illinois P, 2000. Print.