English 2
April 28, 2014
No Japanese, No Fair: Understanding Executive Order 9066 Discrimination is when one group of people treats another group unfairly because of some type of prejudice or hatred. It can happen when people have bad feelings about another person or group of people based on their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. Unfortunately, the US has a long history of discrimination and even if something seemed like the right thing to do at the time, discrimination is hurtful and often very unfair. This is especially true when the discrimination is institutionalized, or a part of the law or government. An example of this is Executive Order 9066 which was enacted during World War II, just after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. When Japan made war on the US on that fateful day, December 7, 1941, the US government and citizens became so scared that they allowed a form of discrimination to occur that was very harmful to thousands of native Japanese and Japanese-Americans. Executive Order 9066 and its details are a part of American history that many people do not know about, and the details of this order, in addition to the past and present affects, demonstrate a time in American history when a terrible case of discrimination was allowed to occur. There are many important details to Executive Order 9066 that should be understood. This order was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at a time when Americans were feeling very scared and suspicions of not only the country of Japan, but also of any Japanese people living in the US. Starting on December 8th, one day after the bombing, the FBI began investigating Japanese in the US, and especially on the West Coast, to find out if they had helped Japan in any way with their attack. While this must have been a very scary time, this was the first example of the discrimination that happened in the US because Japanese were prevented by law from becoming citizens, so they were therefore