December 18, 2011

The Lone Politician Who Stood against Japanese Internment

By Marjorie Haun
"Jap," "the Yellow Peril," and "slanty-eyes" were a few of the cruel and very common epithets used to identify Japanese-Americans in post-Pearl Harbor America.  Within two months of the bombing by the Japanese government of the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt put together a plan to sweep the West Coast clean of persons who may harbor sympathies for the Japanese cause.  With his Executive Order 9066, Roosevelt authorized the military to uproot thousands of Japanese-Americans -- citizens and non-citizens -- and relocate them to landlocked locations throughout the United States. Although Executive Order 9066 also pertained to some Americans of Italian or German descent, the number of those minorities interned was only a few thousand.  By contrast, tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were swept from their homes up and down the West Coast, and as far inland as Arizona.  They were forced to leave behind their property and possessions, taking only what...(Read Full Article)