Executive Order 9066

“A Jap’s a Jap. They are a dangerous element, whether loyal or not.” (John DeWitt)

This quote is from DeWitt’s testimony before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee. DeWitt argued that Japanese Americans had deeper ties to their ancestral homeland than to their adopted country and that, if forced, would side with Japan against the United States—a view shared by a number of other military and government leaders that led Roosevelt to order Japanese American internment.

“[T]he great mass of our people, stemming from these various national ties, must not feel that they have suddenly ceased to be Americans.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

The First Lady of the United States in her syndicated column, “My Day,” urged Americans at large not to turn against Japanese, German, and Italian Americans—representing the three countries with which the US was at war. The First Lady was a prominent voice speaking out against nativist prejudice during the war. She was, however, torn between this stance and her need to avoid publicly disagreeing with her husband’s policies, including Order 9066.

“All of the Japanese should be moved out of the area for their own good as well as ours.” (John DeWitt)

In a public statement, DeWitt put forth a pair of reasons for the internment, one of them different from the dominant one. In addition to protecting Americans from possible attack, DeWitt argues that the internment will protect the Japanese Americans themselves, either from possible attack (in which they too would suffer as well as non-Japanese Americans) and also, possibly, from angry reprisals from non-Japanese Americans.

“These people are not ‘internees’: They are under no suspicion for the most part and were moved largely because we felt we could not control our own white citizens in California.” (John DeWitt)

Contrastingly, this statement comes from DeWitt’s private correspondence. Here he admits that the internees were innocent and claims that the real reason for the evacuation and internment was to protect the Japanese Americans from reprisals. Many, sometimes vague and contradictory, reasons were brought forward for the internment by various officials, underlining that the period was a chaotic and confusing one for America’s leaders.

“The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race and ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to his country and to our creed of liberty and democracy.” (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)

This passage is a quote from FDR’s speech on February 3, 1943, when he signed the executive order creating the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all-Nisei unit. The quote shows Roosevelt backing away from his earlier official stance of internment and welcoming Japanese Americans as loyal servicemen in the war effort.

“You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice—and you have won.” (Harry S. Truman)

These are the words of President Harry Truman upon presenting a citation to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team on July 15, 1946. Truman congratulates the Japanese American fighting unit for their service to the country but also evokes the prejudice that faced them in American society, complicated by the issuing of Order 9066 by his predecessor, FDR. The quote signals a shift in attitude on the part of the government toward Japanese Americans with the war now over.

“[R]easonably undertaken and thoughtfully and humanely conducted.” (John McCloy)

This passage features John McCloy’s characterization of the internment while testifying in 1981 for a committee to determine whether the former internees were entitled to government compensation. The quote shows that McCloy, who played a key role in the internment and was a participant in American government for decades, steadfastly defended and justified it even decades later.

“All ten [internment camp] sites can only be called godforsaken. They were in places where nobody lived before and no one has lived since.” (Roger Daniels)

Written by a leading expert on the Japanese American internment, this quote stresses the deserted, remote, and rugged character of the places chosen by the military for the internment camps across the West and Midwest. Life there was far from pleasant, and the internees were cut off from the life of the country at large, subject to sandstorms and a harsh environment.