The Heightened Importance of Understanding Japanese American WWII Incarceration on this Day of Remembrance
February 19, 2025
For Immediate Release
Seia Watanabe, VP Public Affairs, swatanabe@jacl.org
Matthew Weisbly, Education Programs/Comms Manager, mweisbly@jacl.org
83 years ago on this date, February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This executive action authorized what would become the forced removal and mass incarceration of over 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast and Hawai‘i, two-thirds of whom were United States citizens. In the name of national security, entire families were stripped of their homes, livelihoods, and dignity. Under duress from the government and the threat of their families being separated, some individuals renounced their American citizenship and were deported to Japan, a country they had little connection with other than their DNA.
Even as their nation denied their rights as citizens, Japanese Americans persevered. Over 33,000 men and women demonstrated their patriotism to our country’s ideals through their service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 100th Infantry Battalion, Military Intelligence Service, Women’s Army Corps, Army Nurse Corps, and Cadet Nurse Corps. They heroically risked life and limb for a country that had put their families behind barbed wire. Others demonstrated their belief in our Constitution, demanding their rights as Americans and refusing to fight for a country that had imprisoned them solely because of their ancestry. Our country and even members of our own community labeled them as disloyal, and they were further segregated at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Min Yasui, who pursued their cause through the courts were ultimately denied justice by a Supreme Court overly deferential to an administration that was later found to have lied about the national security threat. As the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians would reveal over 40 years later, the incarceration of Japanese Americans was based on race and not military necessity. EO 9066 demonstrated the dangers of unchecked executive power, under the false pretense of national security.
The history of what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII is not unique. The hateful rhetoric and scapegoating targeting Asian Americans throughout history that led to the signing of EO 9066 has persisted to this day such as the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and the current increasing waves of anti-Asian hate and now increasing anti-China rhetoric. We now have a resurgence of calls to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, broad harmful immigration policies that will lead to family separations and deportations of U.S. citizen children, and the perversion of civil rights laws that have been critical to ensuring qualified people from all backgrounds have a chance to demonstrate their capabilities when they might be otherwise overlooked.
The lessons of the past demand more than remembrance-they demand action. Never Again is a promise to our ancestors and those who endured that we as a nation must not allow the government to use its power to target and discriminate against its people on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or disability.
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The Japanese American Citizens League is a national organization whose ongoing mission is to secure and maintain the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry. The leaders and members of the JACL also work to promote cultural, educational, and social values and preserve the heritage and legacy of the Japanese American community.
