War Relocation Authority -
Our Community Reads 2007, When the Emperor Was Divine

War Relocation Authority

Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in February 1942 and authorized the War Relocation Authority to transport approximately 110,000 first (Issei) and second (Nisei) generation Japanese Americans from the West Coast to ten internment camps located in California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming and Arkansas. Mounting pressure from the military, the media, and a frightened public prompted the creation of the WRA and the enforcement of this mass evacuation.

According to the WRA (May 1943), “the relocation centers… are NOT and never were intended to be internment camps or places of confinement [but established to]…provide communities where evacuees might live and contribute, through their work, to their own support pending their gradual reabsorption into private employment and normal American life; and to serve as war time homes for those evacuees who might be unable or unfit to relocate into ordinary American communities.’’ In reality, however, these camps were poorly furnished and barely provided work opportunities for adults or education for the children.

In 1988, the United States government apologized to the Japanese Americans interred in the camps, and $20,000 in payment for losses was given to each of the approximately 60,000 survivors. President Gerald Ford revoked Executive Order 9066 in 1976.

Learn More

• Links to Other Sites on the Internet

Photos

Japanese-American Internment Center. Line-up of newly arrived evacuees outside of the mess hall at noon. Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California.	Fire Station, Tule Lake Relocation Center, Tule Lake, California, 1943. Courtesy of the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center, Chicago.
Block 10 (barracks) Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas. Courtesy of the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center, Chicago.	Eiko “Vicky” Konman in front of barracks. Rohwer Relocation Center, McGehee, Arkansas, 1945. Courtesy of the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center, Chicago.
Young evacuees of Japanese ancestry waiting for baggage inspection upon arrival at Turlock, California assembly center. May 2, 1942. National Archives and Records Administration.	Baby and girl, Minidoka Relocation Center, Hunt, Idaho, November 1944. Courtesy of the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center, Chicago.

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• Our Community Reads grant from the Kane County Regional Office
  of Education, Dr. Clem Mejia, Regional Superintendent
• St. Charles Public Library (Illinois Per Capita Grant)
• Elgin Community College Writers Center