Order 9066 Resulted in Internment of Japanese

On Feb. 19, 1942, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, granting Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson and his commanders the power “to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded.” While the order named no specific group or location, nearly all Japanese American citizens on the West Coast were soon forced to uproot themselves and their families for relocation to internment camps. For three years, Japanese Americans were forced to live in sparse conditions, surrounded by barbed wire under a continuous cloud of suspicion and threat. Seventy-five years later, the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has widely been denounced as racist and xenophobic and a period of national shame.