Japanese Americans
Henry Sugimoto, Fresh Air Break on the Trip from Fresno to Jerome, 1957; courtesy the the Japanese American Museum
For three years during World War II, tens of thousands of innocent Japanese men, women, and children of Japanese descent were removed from the West Coast and sent to live in internment camps in the nation's interior. Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens. Their only crime was their ancestry. How did this happen?
Pearl Harbor, Racism, and Fear
In 1941 the United States entered World War II after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Back home, amid fears of domestic espionage and long simmering racial prejudice, many Californians began to view loyal Japanese Americans as potential traitors. Almost immediately, politicians launched a campaign to remove people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese and Japanese Americans.