In his speech to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was "a day which will live in infamy." This tragic event marked the beginning of a dark chapter in American history for people of Japanese descent living in the United States.
Excerpts from Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord shed light on the harsh realities faced by Japanese Americans during this time. Families were stripped of their rights and freedoms in February 1942, when FDR signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the forced relocation and internment of thousands.
March marks 80 years since the U.S. issued an exclusion order that forced Japanese Americans from their Bainbridge Island homes. This displacement had a lasting impact on individuals and families, causing emotional trauma and disrupting lives.
An interview with Mitch Homma, whose family members were incarcerated at Amache during World War II simply because of their Japanese heritage, highlights the personal stories of those affected by internment. The Homma family, like many others, experienced the injustice of being uprooted from their homes and confined in detention camps.
In this lesson, students use original Times reporting and other resources to investigate the forced internment of Japanese-Americans, gaining a deeper understanding of the historical context and implications of this dark period in American history.
While today's visitors know SF's Japantown as a tourist spot, the area was once where ostracized people of Japanese descent came to seek refuge and community after being forcibly removed from their homes. The resilience and strength of the Japanese American community shines through despite the hardships they faced.
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to implement the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans. This discriminatory policy targeted innocent individuals based on their ethnicity, leading to widespread injustice.
After photographing families and other residents being led into “assembly centers” in the central and coastal cities of California and the United States, the full extent of the impact of internment becomes evident. The forced relocation of Japanese Americans tore families apart and subjected individuals to harsh living conditions in internment camps.
