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There once was a president with a pen and a phone, who signed an executive order.
That executive order was eventually undone by the Supreme Court, rescinded by another president, and Congress eventually apologized and made restitution to all who were affected.
The president who signed that executive order was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On February 19, 1942, seventy-two years ago today, he signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Secretary of War to designate “military zones” along the West Coast of the United States, and allowed for the internment of over a hundred thousand people (the internment camp facilities were covered by yet another executive order, 9102), of which about two-thirds were American citizens, because… why?
There were several reasons why EO 9066 was signed. Apologists for FDR like to say that he was “pushed” into it by the military. The Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (alternately titled “Personal Justice Denied”), which was published in June 1983, lists the historical causes as “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” (page 5). More recent scholarship shows that FDR was not a fan of Asians, as cited in Greg Robinson’s book By Order of the President. Roosevelt, this forefather of the liberal progressive movement in the United States… was a racist when it came to the Japanese.
Beware a president who dislikes a group of people, and then is given an opportunity to get them out of the way.
Be careful of a government who claims it didn’t do anything to move the process along… and then has to admit, decades later, that yes, they did. The Census Bureau helped the FBI find Japanese American neighborhoods – and then had to admit in 2007 that not only did they provide that information (which they had been given permission to do with the War Powers Ace of 1942), but they also provided “microdata” from the census in order to enable civilian surveillance.
Have we happened to hear anything about data gathering in the news lately, by a government agency who says it’s just looking for the bad guys?
For me, the internment is more than just a history lesson. It’s family history. It’s always a little disconcerting to go onto a database like this one and find your grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmothers, and great-aunts and uncles all listed out. My great-grandfathers aren’t in that database, though. By the time that their wives and children had to report to a War Relocation Authority center in May 1942, my great-grandfathers were already being held separately. My grandmother was 17 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. The FBI came knocking at her door that night and her father was taken away. He spent a good portion of the war in Montana, in a separate Justice Department detention camp.
When the day to report came, my grandfather and his family checked in to Camp Harmony in Puyallup, Washington. My grandmother and her family reported to what is now the Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center in Portland, Oregon. Eventually, my grandparents would meet each other at Camp Minidoka, located in Idaho. The young man from Seattle would meet the young lady from Portland in Idaho, marry in Denver in 1945, and eventually relocate back to Seattle, raise three sons, own a grocery store, and dote on six grandchildren before my grandfather passed away in 1996.
My grandmother doesn’t like talking about the war years. She would rather hear stories about her eleven great-grandchildren than tell any of her own. I have pried some stories out of her, and I never know what conversation will lead to the next story. And she certainly no longer cares as much as she used to about the politics of the day.
So I do that, too. I care about my rights as an American citizen, because my family history shows what happens when a president decides to just “use a pen” and write an executive order to “get things done.” The Supreme Court had conflicting rulings on the internment at the time, eventually declaring in ex parte Endo, 1944, that any one person who the government had declared “loyal” to the government could no longer be detained without just cause. However, another case decided on the same day, Korematsu v. United States, also upheld the constitutionality of the internment camps. That case has been repudiated by later courts, but never formally overturned. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently said that he believes that internment could happen again in a wartime situation.
Be careful of the government who collects information on its citizens. Be wary of a system of government that allows the executive to proceed without checks and balances, and takes years to undo what is done by fiat. Beware of presidents who ignore laws, issue executive orders, and allow their personal motives to influence their policy decisions.
Seventy-two years later, remember Executive Order 9066. Remember that American citizens were stripped of their rights. And don’t think that it can’t ever happen again.
Kate says: Thank you Deanna for writing this. It’s just incredible. And I love the photo of your grandparents…
Dejah Thoris says: That is possibly the best photo of two people in love I have seen in a long time.
We are not so removed from this part of our history that many do not remember it. I understand some of why it was done, given the times, but as an American who knows history, it certainly wasn’t something to be proud of as a way to solve a “problem.”
And everything you said is spot f’ing on….
Deanna Fisher says: Thanks, Dejah.
Have we happened to hear anything about data gathering in the news lately, by a government agency who says it’s just looking for the bad guys?
Who said they are that upfront about it?
My fun and games with the Census Bureau last year over their “American Community Survey” should raise the antenna of anyone not inclined to trust the government with any personal and confidential data.
GWB says: Oh, and my comment below should not be taken in any way as an endorsement of any ongoing practices of surveillance and such. Trusting our government is not something I’m inclined to, no matter the case for or against what happened 70 years ago.
GWB says: Deanna, have you read Michelle Malkin’s book, In Defense Of Internment? I’m curious as to your take on it.
I have always struggled with what occurred – there was a threat from loyalists to Japan. However, a great deal of what happened certainly appears to cross the line concerning the Rights of American citizens (and even residents).
Deanna Fisher says: GWB, I must admit that I have not read Michelle Malkin’s book, purposefully. It’s difficult to try and read something that you know will elevate your blood pressure.
As far as were there real threats from Japanese loyalists? That is certainly debatable. That’s why so many “head of household” men – like my great-grandfathers – were taken and detained separately. They were questioned, interrogated, and eventually were returned to their families. However, by the time they were released to rejoin their families, the families were all in camp themselves. You can make a rational, reasonable argument for detaining and questioning men like my great-grandfathers at the time. There really are no reasonable arguments for “evacuating” entire families – women like my great-grandmothers who spoke little English, young Americanized men like my grandfather, high school students and teenagers like my grandmother – in one fell swoop.
Ranba Ral says: There’s always a threat of espionage from loyalists old homelands in a war. It doesn’t justify mass internment, just increased scrutiny if anything looking like espionage does happen.
A lot of the first hand accounts I’ve read and seen interview footage of indicates that, if anything, internment ran the risk of making the situation worse in the long-run. I recall quite a few mentions of a few Imperial Japanese loyalists being in the camps at the beginning suddenly having captive audiences of upset and angry people, and the younger adults and teens being particularly susceptible to their talking points, as people of such age are wont to do anyway. I’ve read similar things from the accounts of German internment in WWI.
I wrote a pretty long paper and analysis as part of my BA on this topic. Being a Counterintelligence major, my focus was on the behind the scenes information that the public didn’t see. It’s all available now, of course, but it doesn’t matter. The situation has been framed and changed enough so that no one cares about the truth anymore.
I would certainly never attempt to take away Deanna’s family’s experiences, and I’m sure that they are true. That being said, there is a lot more that happened than just this particular story. I’d be happy to make the analysis available if anyone’s interested, but at the very least, I would caution people to do the research themselves, including the original documents in the National Archives. I’ve studied that particular topic for several years in depth, and am very familiar with most of the literature, both government and private—including the docs cited in the article and many, many more.
The truth is that the Commission was made up of people who had already written entire volumes against the internment; one member actually had an eight volume series that used “America’s Concentration Camps” in the title. This was not a fact finding expedition as they claimed. They not only stacked the commission, but they repeatedly ignored exculpatory information and suppressed witnesses. I have reproductions of pages and pages of testimony that the Commission refused to hear; much of it came from Japanese in the camps who supported the evacuation.
People talk about the camps like they were Auschwitz, or that the Japanese were forced into them and imprisoned for years. That’s perhaps the politically correct version of events, but that’s not what happened. The EO simply said that people of Japanese ancestry could not live on the West Coast, where they could easily subvert and sabotage war efforts and assist the Japanese. Most actually relocated inland; the camps were simply for those who could not or would not relocate. The camp in Montana was known for the excellent fishing OUTSIDE the walls, that residents took advantage of daily; the gate wasn’t even closed. Another camp literally had one guard, for the safety of the residents in case people OUTSIDE decided to be stupid. Still another camp’s residents put out chatty newsletters filled with community events and activities that they were involved with. These were not written in blood on walls or anything, they were printed on a typewriter and copied for distribution. Everything I just wrote, by the way, is from testimony the commission refused to hear…then claimed later that they didn’t know about…while they simultaneously claimed that they had made a complete determination from viewing ALL the evidence. In short, the Commission willfully ignored evidence that would have resulted in a different outcome, and I can prove it.
I could literally write for days about this topic. Was it wrong to apply the EO to American citizens? Well, let’s see. You have first generation Japanese who are loyalists to the Empire, who have children—American citizen children—who are being educated in Japanese-style schools where their textbooks tell them to stand up for Japan and ignore their American oppressors, that when the homeland calls, they must answer.
The whole point of the 14th Amendment, as penned by Sen. Jacob Howard, was that the child born a citizen must be “subject to the powers thereof.” Are people born in the US automatically entitled to protection if they are NOT subject to the powers, but are in fact agents and actors of a foreign state which the US is currently at war with? It’s a difficult question, but hindsight is often 20/20.
Deanna Fisher says: My great-grandfather was in the Montana camp. The few surviving letters that my grandmother has reflect a lot of boredom. From what we can read – portions are blacked out by censors.
Some families packed up and left the West Coast. However, most did not, mostly because the husbands/fathers were already incarcerated and the wives/mothers weren’t going to make that kind of decision on what to do with their family – and in many cases, businesses – until forced to. Many of those women – my great-grandmothers included – never learned to speak more than elementary English, and felt ill-equipped to deal with what happened. What is also of note is that most of them lined up to go to camp. There were questions about loyalty. Among the Nisei, who were American citizens, there was a great deal of shock. They considered themselves Americans (the Kibei are a different issue). As a American of Japanese descent who has also lived in Japan… you’ve never seen discrimination like a Japanese person looking at a Japanese face that can’t speak Japanese properly. (I got a pass – I don’t “look” Japanese enough to be considered Japanese.)
To fill in another part of my family story, my grandfather left camp in 1944 because he volunteered for the 442nd, as did my grandmother’s brother. My grandfather washed out of basic due to health issues, but my great-uncle just attended the big 442nd reunion in Washington D.C. last year.
Again, I understand that you’re speaking about family history and I’m not trying to trample on it. I just think it’s extremely important that the full context of the situation gets discussed. Truth is messy and it’s never one-sided. To say that no mistakes were made would be a lie. But to characterize the entire thing as one big racist exercise that victimized only one race is also incorrect, and it poisons any discussion that springs from it.
Deanna Fisher says: I think that we can agree that any president who creates law wholesale by executive order ought to be scrutinized, checked, and balanced, as the Constitution intended.
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