Executive Order 9066: The 2022 Day of Remembrance, 80 years of reckoning

   Eighty years ago on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. This mandated the forced removal and incarceration of everyone associated with Historic Wintersburg, the Furuta family, clergy and congregation of the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. 

   By the end of May 1942, all Japanese Americans in Orange County were incarcerated at assembly, detention, and concentration centers. The majority were U.S.-born citizens.

LEFT: "Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry" posted on an Orange County telephone pole. (Santa Ana Register, May 11, 1942)

   On February 18, 2022, a Presidential proclamation recognizes, "Despite never being charged with a crime, and without due process, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and communities and incarcerated, simply because of their heritage.  For years, many Japanese Americans lived in harsh, overcrowded conditions, surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards.  Not only did they lose their homes, businesses, property, and savings — they also lost their liberty, security, and the fundamental freedoms that belong to all Americans in equal measure."

   The national Day of Remembrance this year initiated on February 18 and includes a three-day program with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. 

   WATCH: National Day of Rembrance: 80 Years of Reckoning. (click link)

   ONLINE PROGRAM SCHEDULE: Smithsonian's National Museum of American History program schedule and links (click link) to online programs February 18 to 20, including the opening program and six live-streamed panel discussions.

RIGHT: The bible carried by Charles Mitsuji Furuta, Furuta Gold Fish Farm at Historic Wintersburg, as he was taken first to the Huntington Beach jail, then to Tuna Canyon Detention Station, to military prison camps in Santa Fe and Lordsburg, New Mexico, and finally, to Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center in Arizona. He was arrested and separated from his family within two days of Executive Order 9066 and was reunited with them over a year later at Poston. He had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades. (Photo, M. Urashima, Courtesy of the Furuta family)

  "Executive Order 9066 sounds so bureaucratic, so government, so normal. But behind the blandness is pain. Behind the plainness, is grave injustice." says Koji Tomita, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United States in the opening program with the White House. "Why do we remember an event that caused so much anguish? We do so to remember those who suffered as a result of it. We do so that we will not forget the lessons we learned from those dark times. The significance of this American national experience is not confined to Americans only or to Japanese Americans only. It matters to all of us around the world who believe in liberty and justice for our citizens. It matters today and it will matter for all the years ahead."

LEFT: Tadashi Kowta at Historic Wintersburg in 2013, standing in front of the manse where he lived as a child while his father, Reverend Sohei Kowta, served as clergy for the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. Read the Kowta family's story, Reverend Sohei Kowta: The Sunday Before."

   Ambassador Tomita spoke about the strength of the relationship between Japan and the United States and recognized the years of effort by Japanese Americans to gain formal apology and redress, ultimately leading to the signing by President Ronald Reagan of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. 

   "This redressing of injustice says something about the fundamental strength of American society in having the courage to admit an error and right the wrong...The struggle for perfection amid imperfection---I believe this is one of the attributes that has made the United States a great and respected nation."

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