#eo9066

During a White House tour for Wounded Warriors and their families, Alanah Poullard, age 5, asked President Obama for a note to excuse her from kindergarten that day. He kindly obliged. (9/19/2013, Obama Library, NARA ID 118817989)

Kindergarten kids, records of the Marshall Plan programs in France post WW2, NARA ID 19985711.

NATIONAL KINDERGARTEN DAY!

Ready for snack time? Play time? Nap time? Circle time?

By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

We mark National Kindergarten Day with records showing Kindergarten kids in a variety of circumstances, including World War I refugees, Japanese-American World War II internees, and post-war children in France.

Kindergarten class, records of the Marshall Plan programs in France post WW2, NARA ID 19985707.

World War I refugee children in makeshift kindergarten, 12/1918. NARA ID 31483306.

Kindergarten children give pennies to the Red Cross, Children's World War I Relief Activities, Plainfield, NJ. NARA ID 31483142.

Daily kindergarten demo, Child Welfare exhibit in France run by the American Red Cross. October, 1918. NARA ID 31483488.

Shigeko Tabuchi teaches Kindergarten in barracks 35-4F, Rohwer Japanese Internment Camp, AR, 11/24/1942. War Relocation Authority, NARA ID 538957.

Kindergarten class on the playground at Tule Lake Japanese Internment Camp, Newell, CA, 9/1944. War Relocation Authority, NARA ID 539600.

Evacuee Property

In remembrance of Executive Order 9066, signed this day in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, we share a passionate letter written by 25 year-old Yoshio Nakada.  Nakada was removed from his citrus ranch near Asuza, California, as a result of the creation of military exclusion areas along the west coast of the United States.  Nakada and his family were removed to the Los Angeles County fairgrounds, and later sent to Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. Relocatees could only take what they could carry, and much of their property was subsequently sold at auction. The U.S. Department of Agriculture War Board for Los Angeles County wrote to Mr. Nakada encouraging him to sell his idle farm equipment rather than letting it go to auction. This letter is his response.

The full text of E.O. 9066 is available on archives.gov 

To learn more about the Japanese American experience, visit the Japanese American National Museum.

When Kazuo Tomasa joined the Army at age 18, he had never left Oahu, let alone traveled to the mainland. The world beyond Hawaii was very big and there was much to see that he had never come across before. Imagine growing up where most Haoles (white people) have the real money and influence and knowing you’re not one of them, and then coming to Fort Shelby, Mississippi and seeing a similar tension, but this time it’s not directed at you but another minority. The southern states of the mainland had very strict laws of segregation, dividing access to buildings like restaurants and theaters and even buses between “White” and “Colored.” In this case, “Colored” meant African Americans. Most Japanese Americans were confused by these labels and then surprised when they were told that they were “white.”

Clem Albers (1903-1990), War Relocation Authority (WRA) Photographer

A Michigan native, Albers grew up in Berkeley, California. While a teenager, he began working as a photographer for the San Francisco Bulletin. He was later employed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The WRA hired Albers on a short-term contract during the spring of 1942. He shot many memorable photographs documenting the “evacuation” and incarceration process in California and Arizona. Albers left the WRA in May 1942 and became a photographer in the United States Maritime Service. He returned to the San Francisco Chronicle after the war and, eventually, became the newspaper’s chief photographer.

High School Dance,Tule Lake Relocation Center, 1940s

Life has its sweet moments -- even in an internment camp. Tule Lake was in operation from 1942 to 1946. It was the only high security camp and was under martial law and occupied by the Army. Those who protested the incarceration were labeled "disloyals" and sent here.

The Tag Project, 2012 Wendy Maruyama Paper, string, ink, dimensions vary

In this Bicentennial Year, we are commemorating the anniversary dates of many of the great events in American history. An honest reckoning, however, must include a recognition of our national mistakes as well as our national achievements. Learning from our mistakes is not pleasant, but as a great philosopher once admonished, we must do so if we want to avoid repeating them.

– Gerald R. Ford, “An American Promise”

75 years ago today President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II. 

Although the order had ceased to be effective once hostilities had ended, in the early 1970s the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and others petitioned the White House to have the termination officially recognized. On February 19, 1976, President Ford signed the proclamation “An American Promise” explicitly stating that “all the authority conferred by Executive Order No. 9066 termi­nated upon the issuance of Proclamation No. 2714, which formally proclaimed the cessation of the hostilities of World War II on December 31, 1946.”

Representatives from the JACL as well as Senator Hiram Fong, Senator Daniel Inouye, Congressman Spark Matsunaga, and Congresswoman Patsy Mink attended the ceremony in the Cabinet Room. “We now know what we should have known then – not only was that evacuation wrong, but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans,” President Ford said in his remarks at the signing ceremony. “I call upon the American people to affirm with me the unhyphenated American promise that we have learned from the tragedy of that long ago experience – forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of error shall never be made again.”

After studying welding, Fumio Steve Shimizu got a job working on a secret, underground fuel-storage facility at Pearl Harbor. His quest to better himself would result in having a front-row seat to one of the most infamous events in history. Steve and the men of his dayshift crew were waiting for the elevator to come up at 8:00 am, standing along a mountain ridge overlooking the harbor. “From where we stood you could see all the ships lined up,” he recalled as he spoke of the planes breaking formation to sweep down on their targets. “The first one was the Arizona, which took a direct hit.” The pilot had crashed his plane into the smokestacks, resulting in a huge explosion and causing the ship to capsize. The speed at which all this occurred is why so many sailors were trapped inside and many others died instantly. Of the 2,400-plus military and civilians who died during the attack, 1,177 were from the USS Arizona. Steve said that the USS Oklahoma was attacked in the same way. . Seeing an attack of this magnitude would either inspire patriotism in you or make you never want anything to do with a battle. For Steve, the choice was clear but the ability to volunteer would not be afforded to him, as he would soon be reclassified as an Enemy Alien. Steve lost his job at Pearl Harbor because of his Japanese heritage, yet his skills as a welder were in high demand, especially now that the US was in a state of war. Steve’s opportunity to join the 442nd came along in 1943 and he went to the mainland for training.