Japanese American Internment: Executive Order 9066: Home
This guide provides resources around Executive Order 9066 that forced the relocation of Japanese Americans into internment camps.
Executive Order 9066
- Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Executive Order 9066 dated February 19, 1942, in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt Authorizes the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas which lead to Japanese Americans to be placed into internment camps.
Revoking Executive Order 9066: Ford's "American Promise"
- An American Promise: A Proclamation
Issued on Feb. 19th, 1976 by President Gerald Ford, Proclamation No. 2714 terminated Executive Order No. 9066.
Primary Documents and Reports
- A Slap's a Slap: General DeWitt and Four Little Words
Documents describing the remarks made about Japanese-Americans by the General instrumental in the development of Executive Order 9066. - Library of Congress Primary Source Set: Japanese American Internment
This teaching guide from the Library of Congress includes links to primary source materials. - Relocating a People
Government employment brochure from 1943, - Japanese American Confinement
Information from the National Park Service and their role in preserving information on relocation centers and internment camps. - Database of Japanese American Evacuees
Search the National Archives Evacuee Case Files Index here. - Transcript of First Order
Full text of first order to force all persons of Japanese Ancestory out of San Francisco. - Densho Digital RepositoryPhotographs, newspapers, letters and other primary sources of the Japanese American incarceration experience from the non profit Densho based in Seattle, WA.
- Digital Public Library of America
Primary sources from the Digital Public Library of America on the Japanese American Internment During World War II. Includes links to other exhibitions.
Related Books and Articles
- Why FDR Did What He Did
From U.S. News and World Report, this article "discusses the explanations offered regarding U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's decision to place Japanese Americans in internment camps during the Second World War."
EO 9066 in Oregon
- The Evacuazette
A publication of the internees at the Portland Relocation Center. This camp newspaper was published twice weekly from May 19, 1942 until August 25th, 1942, when the internees were transferred to Idaho and Wyoming.
More information on the Evacuazette paper and the Portland Relocation Center can be found at the Oregon History Project's page.
Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence by Tells the story of Japanese Americans from Hood River, Oregon who served in the Armed Forces during World War II, even as their families were imprisoned in camps. Town leaders attempted to block their return after the war. Also available to read online as an eBook.
- Oregon History Project: Japanese Evacuees in Portland
"In May 1942, Portland area Japanese Americans, both issei, or first generation, and nisei, or second generation, were evacuated to hastily-constructed temporary living spaces in what had previously been the Pacific International Livestock Exposition building in the north of Portland."
The Hood River Issei by An oral history of Japanese settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley, including the World War II years.
- Japanese-American War Time Incarceration in Oregon
Detailed article and photos from the Oregon Encyclopedia. - Oregon's Japanese Americans: Beyond The Wire
from Oregon Public Broadcast's Oregon Experience series - Japanese American Museum of OregonOnline exhibits about the history of Japanese Americans in Oregon.
- Portland Expo Center: A Hidden History
A story and interview that recounts the history of the Portland Expo Center's era as a prison for Japanese Americans.
Minoru Yasui
Minoru Yasui was a Japanese American who was imprisoned for breaking the curfew imposed on people of Japanese Ancestry. Yasui was born in Hood River, Oregon and spent his life working towards civil rights for all. In 2015, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his devotion to human rights and equal treatment of Americans.
Videos
And then they came for us by
"In 1942, Executive Order 9066 paved the way for the profound violation of constitutional rights that resulted in the forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Featuring George Takei and many others who were incarcerated, as well as newly rediscovered photographs of Dorothea Lange ... brings history into the present, retelling this difficult story and following Japanese Americans as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban"--Container.
- Farewell to Manzanar (film)
The true story of the Wakatsuki family of Santa Monica, California, is told by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, who was seven years old when she and her family were taken by bus 250 miles to Camp Manzanar, near the High Sierras. The drama follows the family from their well-ordered, pleasant life in Santa Monica to the emotion-shattering experience of being uprooted and evacuated to camps. Based on the book by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston
From Prisoner to President in One Generation
Watch From Prisoner to President in One Generation, an interview between President Mark Mitsui and his mother, Tami. In the interview, they reflect on Executive Order 9066 and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Images
More images can be found through the Japanese-American Internment pages at the Library of Congress and the National Archives.
- Entrance to Manzanar, Manzanar Relocation Center
Wooden sign at entrance to the Manzanar War Relocation Center with a car at the gatehouse in the background. Image by Ansel Adams, 1943. From the Library of Congress collection. - Family in California
"The Shibuya family are pictured at their home before evacuation. The parents were born in Japan and came to the US in 1904. The father built a prosperous business of raising select varieties of chrysanthemums which he shipped to Eastern markets under his own trade name. Six children in the family were born in the United States." From the National Archives - Coal Crew in Wyoming
"It takes approximately four carloads of coal a day to provide heat for residents at this Wyoming relocation center during the cold winter months. Here a crew of men load trucks from the coal gondola for delivery to barracks." From the National Archives
Memoir and Poetry
Stubborn Twig by This Oregon Book Award winner is set in Hood River, Oregon and is "the story of one Japanese American family's century-long struggle to adjust, endure and ultimately triumph in their new country."
May Sky by "The dark time in American history of the arrest and internment of Japanese American citizens is here presented in terms of the important cultural activity of the haiku clubs."
Only What We Could Carry by "Personal documents, art, propaganda, and stories express the Japanese American experience in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor."
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