It sounds like something from Star Wars, but Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, giving the Secretary of War the authority to declare certain areas of the United States as military zones, which then set the stage for Japanese-American internment camps. About 120,000 American citizens and immigrants of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated from their homes, businesses, and ways of life. 80,000 of them, such as Star Trek’s George Takei and former Secretary of Transport Norm Mineta, were second- and even third-generation.
Let’s remember internment survivors and all the communities that continue to have their civil liberties violated today simply because of where they came from.
Thanks to 18 Million Rising for the reminder!