Day of Remembrance

February 19th is a significant date for the Japanese American community. On this day in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. Army the authority to remove civilians from the military zones established in Washington, Oregon, and California during WWII. This led to the forced removal and incarceration of some 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast. They had to abandon their jobs, homes, and lives to be sent to one of ten concentration camps scattered in desolate, remote regions of the country.