Executive Order 9056: A Brief History

In 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to the Secretary of War to set military areas. This led to the imprisonment of several minorities. Japanese-American citizens were among the individuals most affected by having property taken away and being stripped of their civil rights . Executive Order 9066 was an attempt to ensure safety, is still relevant today, and its history can be used to learn what practices work best at protecting American citizens’ civil liberties.

During World War II, people were scared for their lives in the United States. Citizens looked to the government to protect them. Because it was President Roosevelt’s responsibility to decide a course of action to protect America, he was influenced by federal

There has been a domino effect of racist events against Japanese-Americans, including having to face bigotry, people (white Americans) that have an irrational fear of people descending from another country (Japanese-Americans), and racism since President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 . Bigotry, xenophobia, and racism impair the Japanese-American community. Not only did the forced evacuation of Japanese people in Hawaii and on the West Coast lead to unconstitutional imprisonment of 120,000 people, two thirds of whom were US-born citizens, but it also represented a failure of the country’s democracy by denying American citizens their rights granted by the U.S. Constitution . Because the Japanese-Americans were born in the United States, their U.S. citizenship was their birthright and was supposed to protect them; however, this was not the case and the loss of their property, unjust detainment because of a “national security risk”, and loss of their citizen status humiliated the American born citizens of Japanese immigrants. The US government purposely violated the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution and although since WWII the Japanese-Americans have been apologized to and the U.S. has admitted it was a mistake to detain these citizens, debate over the legitimacy of the 14th amendment now exists . The violation of citizenship to children of immigrants in 1942 prevents the United States