Feb. 19 (UPI) — Sunday marks the 81st anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066 which led to the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans.
President Joe Biden marked the Day of Remembrance with a statement, calling it a warning of the dangers of hatred, racism and xenophobia.
“When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, eighty-one years ago today, it ushered in one of the most shameful periods in American history,” Biden wrote.
“Men, women, and children were forced to abandon their homes, their jobs, their communities, their businesses, and their way of life. They were sent to inhumane concentration camps simply because of their heritage. And in a tragic miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court upheld these immoral and unconstitutional policies.”
In the months to follow, Japanese-Americans, including children, were forced into internment camps in Utah, Arkansas, Wyoming, California, Arizona, Colorado and Idaho. More than half of those incarcerated were American citizens, according to the National Archives.
Executive Order 9066 followed the attack on Pearl Harbor, but according to the National Archives there were other motivations for removing people of Japanese heritage from the United States, particularly in western states.
The Department of Justice would question the constitutional and ethical basis for such an action to no avail. Then on Feb. 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed the order authorizing the military to push people of Japanese heritage from their homes along the West Coast.
“Despite losing liberty, security, and the fundamental freedoms that rightfully belonged to them, 33,000 Japanese Americans volunteered or were drafted for service in the U.S. military during World War II,” Biden said in his statement.
“While their own families were behind barbed wires, Japanese Americans fought in defense of the nation’s freedom with valor and courage.”
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 to issue a formal apology and $20,000 in reparations to surviving Japanese-Americans.
