History Spotlight, 1/13

One this day in 1942 one of the worst civil right abuses in modern US history gets rolling when FDR signs Presidential Proclamation 2537, requiring resident aliens to report and change of address, employment or name to the FBI. This would lead in turn to Executive Order 9066 which required that all American citizens of Japanese descent (as little as 1/16th Japanese ancestry) on the West Coast be kept in "internment camps."

California of the early 20th century was rife with anti-Asian sentiment, of an intensity not seen in other parts of the county. This was, of course, because there weren't many Asians in the other parts. Asians (or "Mongolians" as they were known) were added to the anti-miscegenation laws of the time. The Federal Immigration Act of 1924, which was supported by the eugenicsts of the day, put severe limits on almost all immigration but fell upon the prospective Asian immigrants especially hard.

When the Empire of Japan struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, war fever hit the whole country, but especially on the West Coast where they feared an iminent invasion. This may not be as far fetched as it sounds - after all the Japanese war machine had made almost unbelievable advances in the Western Pacific and many people felt that the oil fields and industry of the US Pacific Coast would be an irresistible temptation. Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth - the Japanese Empire had overextended itself just getting to Hawaii - full assaults California or the Panama Canal would have been nearly impossible.

But that didn't stop the hysteria. Various groups (including the California State Legislature) issued reports stating that the Japanese never could be fully assimilated into American culture and would be prone to committing acts of espionage or sabotage. California Attorney General Earl Warren petitioned the US government to remove all Japanese people from the West Coast.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive Order 9066 which allowed the military to designate so-called "military areas" in which any person within may be excluded. By the end of the war, the exclusion zones would comprise all of the West Coast and most of the East Coast (about one-third of the country) Interestingly, most of these rules didn't apply in Hawaii, where you would think war fever would be at it's peak. The problem was that people of Japanese descent were about one third of the total Hawaiian population and the islands would have shut down if that much of the population had to be incarcerated.

Many Japanese living on the West Coast initially tried to get somewhere on the East Coast or the Midwest, either living with friends or family. But most of those states were not looking forward to a mass movement of Japanese into their territory. "There would have been Japs hanging from every pine tree," said Wyoming Governor Nels H. Smith. On March 27, 1942, a freeze order was issued, preventing any more Japanese people from leaving the West Coast. They were initially put in "assembly centers" such as hastily converted horse stalls on in empty fairgrounds. They were soon shipped out to one of ten regional internment centers as far away as Arkansas. The head of the War Relocation Authority, Milton Eisenhower (brother of Dwight) resigned in disgust and advised his successor that he would have trouble sleeping at night. The camps weren't on the level as the depravity seen in the German, but barbed wire and machine gun nests are the same everywhere.

In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided an offical government apology and $20,000 for each surviving detainee.