1. Japanese Internment Camps 1942 - 1946

2. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing exclusion and internment of U.S. citizens.

4. Congress implemented the order on March 21, 1942, by passing Public Law 503.

7. The Executive Order, authorized the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.”

8. So, the military defined the entire West Coast as a military zone.

11. This prompted the forced relocation and incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in camps throughout the Western United States.

13. Notices appeared ordering people of Japanese descent to report to civil stations for transport.

19. Desperate families sold off belongings for cheap and packed what they could.

23. By June 1942, Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps in scattered locations around the country.

27. Japanese Americans were sent to one of 10 internment camps in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas.

33. One of the ten internment camps was Manzanar, located in in the Owens Valley of California.

38. About two-thirds of all Japanese Americans interned at Manzanar were American citizens by birth.

41. For the next three and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

45. Many of the internees were unaccustomed to the harsh weather conditions; summer temperatures rose as high as 110 degrees F and in the winter temperatures dropped below freezing.

50. Children still attended school.
Adults found jobs that gave them wages from as low as $12 to $19 a month.

54. The jobs offered to them included digging irrigation canals, tending fruits and vegetables, making clothes and furniture for themselves, serving in the mess hall, doctors, nurses, and teachers.

59. The last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945.
In 1944, two and a half years after signing Executive Order 9066, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rescinded the order.
The last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945.

64. The Day of Remembrance (DOR) is a day commemorating the Japanese American internment during World War II. Events in numerous U.S. states are held on or near February 19, the day in 1942 that Executive Order 9066 was signed, requiring internment of all Americans of Japanese ancestry.