Racism & Exclusion

Representatives of the California congressional delegation were reportedly “beginning to get up in arms” over the Japanese situation. They led an informal meeting that included Washington state congressmen, and Justice and War department personnel. The group unanimously approved, on January 30, 1942, a program which called for an evacuation of enemy aliens and “dual” citizens from critical areas.

This led to Executive Order 9066 which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed on February 19, 1942. The order authorized the removal of Japanese Americans from the eastern sections of California, Oregon, Washington, as well as southern Arizona and parts of Alaska.  The exclusion zone eventually expanded to include all of California.

Forty years later, Congressional hearings determined that, “the promulgation of Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions which followed from it—detention, ending detention and ending exclusion—were not driven by the analysis of military conditions. The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”