Tag Archives: Executive Order 9066

Features

Remembering Executive Order 9066 Through the Generations

by Julia Park, photos by Alex Garland

The forced removal of Japanese Americans into incarceration camps after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 affected thousands of families including both Issei — Japanese-born immigrants — and their Nisei children born in the United States.

Now, as the oldest generation of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII is largely gone, their descendants are carrying the memory of the camps forward. More than 80 years later, the struggle is how to preserve the integrity of the story when each generation’s memory of the camps is different.

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Community

Kubota Garden Foundation Remembers Executive Order 9066

On Feb. 19, 1942, after the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, giving the secretary of war and all military branches the power to exclude people deemed a threat to national security from all militarily sensitive areas. Implementation of this order, left up to the secretary and military commanders, deemed the entire West Coast of the U.S. as “militarily sensitive.” As a result, all people of Japanese descent living in the western U.S., even American citizens, were forced out of their homes and into concentration camps for the duration of WWII.

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Community

Day of Remembrance: Commemorating Executive Order 9066

by Julia Park and Mark Van Streefkerk

On the first Day of Remembrance event held in 1978, Seattle author Frank Abe remembers being blown away by the turnout.

“There were hundreds of people just waiting to sign up,” Abe said. “And I mean a thousand people and hundreds of cars jamming the parking lot.” They were there to recreate the trip Japanese Americans took in WWII after the U.S. government forced adults and families into desolate incarceration camps.

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Community

‘Meet Me at Higo’ Recalls Executive Order 9066 Through Seattle’s Murakami Family

by Victor Simoes

On Feb. 1, “Meet Me at Higo: An Enduring Story of a Japanese American Family,” the traveling exhibit from the Wing Luke Museum, opened on Level 8 of The Seattle Public Library’s (SPL) Central Library location. The exhibit tells the story of a Japanese American family in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District before, during, and after World War II, allowing visitors to get a sense of the profound historical roots of the Japanese American community in Seattle. 

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Community

The 80th Anniversary of EO 9066 and Japanese Americans’ Seattle Legacy

by Amanda Ong

Memories of a Japanese American community before internment are strewn in bits and pieces across Seattle: the panels in Pike Place Market commemorating the original Japanese American farmers, fruit trees in South Park that had once been orchards planted by Japanese Americans, KOBO in CID at the former Higo 10 Cents Store of Japantown, or the bonsai at the Pacific Bonsai Museum donated from neighbors who took care of the trees for Japanese families who never returned.

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Voices

OPINION: What It Means to Be Japanese American — Michelle Kumata’s Artistic Exploration

by Glenn Nelson

Though Michelle Kumata can make your eyes pop with her colors and imagery, if you don’t examine her pieces carefully, detect the nuances and Easter eggs, and cogitate upon all of them, you are bound to miss something profound. 

In that way, the artist and her art are like holding a highly polished mirror to her Japanese American heritage. Hers is a community whose connective tissue is its experience with mass incarceration by its own government. The melding of Japanese customs and response to a very American-concocted collective trauma has resulted in a community whose definition evades clarity, even to its own members.

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News

NEWS GLEAMS: Retired Black Firefighters Protest, Vandals Strike FCS Van, & More

curated by Emerald Staff

A round-up of news and announcements we don’t want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

✨Gleaming This Week✨

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News

NEWS GLEAMS: Who Will Lead the SPL? Remembering the Holocaust and Executive Order 9066

curated by Emerald Staff

A round-up of news and announcements we don’t want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

✨Gleaming This Week✨

Continue reading NEWS GLEAMS: Who Will Lead the SPL? Remembering the Holocaust and Executive Order 9066 →
Community

Bob Shimabukuro’s Legacy of Community Activism, Art, and Creative Journalism

by Ron Chew

(This article was originally published by the International Examiner and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

On Monday, March 29, our hearts were broken. Bob Shimabukuro died peacefully in his southeast Seattle home. We lost a perennial International Examiner writer, columnist, editor, and audacious community champion.

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Voices

Day of Remembrance 2021: Another Time, Another Place

by Stanley N Shikuma

Executive orders have been in the news a lot lately. Did you know there have been over 15,000 executive orders signed by 46 presidents in the history of the United States? More than 3,700 were signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) alone. Yet how many of those executive orders do you remember by number? 

The only one I can think of is Executive Order (EO) 9066. 

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