Japanese American Day of RemembranceSouth Seattle Community CollegeFebruary 20, 2014

• To help us Reflect and Educate one another- that we can Empower ourselves and Take Action so that events like this may never happen again.

Day of Remembrance at South Seattle Community College2014

• Japan bombs U.S. ships and planes at the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii. More than 3,500 servicemen are wounded or killed.

Attack on Pearl HarborDecember 7, 1941

Declaration of warDecember 8, 1941

• Congress approves the declaration of war presented by the President.

Source: Wikipedia

War Time Hysteria

• Many Americans reacted with fear and anger after Pearl Harbor.

Propaganda

Executive Order 9066February 19, 1942

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066

• Authorizing military to exclude civilians from any area

Map of the relocation of Japanese Americans on the West Coast

Source: National Park Service

The Exclusion area : any Japanese person living in that area was removed

Exclusion Orders given out– Japanese people living on the West Coast have 7-10 days to move out

March-October 1942

What would you bring?

• Each person was only allowed to bring what he or she could carry.

Sent to Assembly centersMarch 1942

92,000 people are sent temporarily to live in “assembly centers,” mostly race tracks and fairgrounds.

Puyallup Fairgrounds became the Assembly Center for Washington, known as “Camp Harmony”

1942:110,000 people are sent to WRA incarceration camps called “relocation centers”• Ten camps set in sparsely populated and

isolated areas.• Two-thirds of the incarcerees are U.S. citizens.

The Incarceration Camps

Minidoka:Idaho• Populatio

n: 9,397

Poston:Arizona• Pop.:17,81

4

Rohwer:Arkansas• Pop.:

8,475

Topaz:UtahPop: 8,130

Tule Lake:CaliforniaPop.:18,789

The Incarceration Camps

Gila River: Arizona• Population: 13,

248

Granada: Colorado• Population: 7,318

Heart Mountain: Wyoming•Population: 10,767

Jerome:

ArkansasPopulation: 8,497

Manzanar: CaliforniaPopulation: 10,767

Most people from Washington were sent to Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho

Military: Serving in WWII

1943: War Department announces a segregated unit

of Japanese American soldiers, the 100th

Battalion/442nd Combat Team

10,000 Japanese American men volunteer for the armed services

from Hawaii. 1,200 from the camps volunteer

1944: Military Draft. More than 33,000

Japanese Americans serve in the military

Approximately 300 refuse to be

inducted

Military Intelligence Service (M.I.S.): 5,000 Japanese

Americans soldiers train as Japanese language specialists

The 100th Battalion/442nd Combat Team become the

most decorated U.S. military unit

Supreme Court CasesYasui (1943) Hirabayashi (1943) Korematsu (1944)Resisted the curfew orders

Resisted the exclusion orders

Resisted the exclusion orders

U.S. Supreme Court held the application of curfews against citizens is constitutional.

U.S. Supreme Court held the application of curfews against members of a minority group were constitutional when the nation was at war with the country from which that group originated.

U.S. sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional.

Legal appeals1983-1988

• The wartime convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, and Fred Korematsu (the three men who protested the curfew and/or exclusion orders) are vacated, or "nullified," because of government misconduct.

Photo: Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu in 1983.Source: Rafu Shimpo

1945-present

End of war, redress

1945- 1946 Incarceration Camps Close

• When the camps closed, incarcerees were handed $25 and put on trains headed for the places they had been forcibly removed from four years earlier.

• Thousands have nowhere to go, no housing or jobs.

Redress Movement1970s-1980s

• A national movement from Japanese Americans and their supporters to obtain an apology and compensation from the U.S. government for wrongful actions during WWII

Photo: Congressional hearing in Seattle (1981)

Civil Liberties ActAugust 10, 1988

• President Ronald Reagan signs HR 442 into law.

• Offers an apology and reparation payment of $20,000 to each person incarcerated under Executive Order 9066.

Apology by President Bill Clinton1993

“In passing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, we acknowledged the wrongs of the past and offered redress to those who endured such grave injustice. In retrospect, we understand that the nation’s actions were rooted deeply in racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a lack of political leadership. We must learn from the past and dedicate ourselves as a nation to renewing the spirit of equality and our love of freedom. Together, we can guarantee a future with liberty and justice for all.”

- Bill Clinton

• This year we welcome Frank Abe to South.

Day of Remembrance at South Seattle Community College2014

Frank Abe

• Producer, Director, and Writer of the film “Conscience and the Constitution.” Welcome Frank to

South!