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."

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.  

Day of Remembrance: 76th anniversary

ABOVE: Girl and Boy Scouts with the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo carry in the banners of the major confinement camps into the hall at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. An eleventh banner (not shown) represented the Department of Justice and military detention centers, to which those classified as "enemy alien" were incarcerated. Those in the audience stand as the banner for the camp where they or their family were incarcerated. (Photo, M. Urashima, February 17, 2018) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   February 19 marks the annual Day of Remembrance, the anniversary of the authorization of Executive Order 9066, which mandated the forced removal and incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.  The majority of the 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated were U.S. citizens.

   Everyone associated with the Historic Wintersburg property--farmers, clergy, and congregation of the Wintersburg Japanese Mission--was incarcerated as a result of Executive Order 9066.  The majority of those from the Wintersburg Village and Huntington Beach area were incarcerated at the Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona.

   The national listing of Day of Remembrance events is provided by the Japanese American Citizens League, national events directory.

   Historic Wintersburg participated in the Day of Remembrance at the Japanese American National Museum. Photographs of the event are on our Facebook page, Day of Remembrance 2018.

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.

"Instructions to All Persons": Day of Remembrance 2017 on the 75th year anniversary

   On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized Executive Order 9066 which mandated the removal and incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.  The majority of the 120,000 Americans confined in "relocation centers" scattered throughout the United States were U.S.-born citizens.  

   Those classified as "non-citizen alien" were confined at detention stations, and Department of Justice and Immigration and Naturalization Service prison camps; the Issei (first generation) had not been allowed to apply for citizenship.  Many---like Charles Furuta, of the Furuta farm at Historic Wintersburg---had been in the United States for over four decades, many since the 1880s. 

LEFT: An excerpt from The Spoilage describing the conditions at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in May 1942 as people from Orange County, California arrived. (Source: The Spoilage: Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement; Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Richard S. Nishimoto;University of California Press, 1946)

LEFT: New arrivals at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) filling cloth sacks with hay, to make bedding. Barracks were constructed of green lumber, which dried quickly in the Arizona heat causing openings for wind and dust. There was no furniture or screens between families in the barracks, no medical services, and water and sanitation systems were not complete. The temperature was reported to be over 100 degrees in May, 1942, as people arrived.  (Photograph, National Archives and Records Administration, May 21, 1942)

   Everyone associated with Historic Wintersburg---the Furuta family, the clergy (Reverend Sohei Kowta and his family), the congregation---were forcibly removed from California and confined.  The FBI interrogations of Charles Furuta and Reverend Kowta occurred on the Historic Wintersburg property.  By May 1942, all Japanese Americans in Orange County were gone.

RIGHT: The Furuta family at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in Arizona. Front row, left to right: Kazuko Furuta, Grace Furuta, Yukiko Yajima Furuta (holding her grandson, Ken Furuta, who was born in Poston), and Charles Furuta. Back row, left to right: Dan Fukushima (husband of Etsuko Furuta and well known basketball coach in San Jose, California), Etsuko Furuta Fukushima, Martha and Raymond Furuta (son of Charles and Yukiko Furuta).  Dan Fukushima originally had been sent to Manzanar, but was allowed to join Etsuko at Poston, where they were married in one of the camp barracks by Reverend Sohei Kowta of the Wintersburg Japanese Church.  All the Furuta children had attended Huntington Beach High School.  Photographs from inside the camps were rare, as cameras at first were not allowed. This photograph was taken circa 1945, prior the Furuta family and others being released to return home.  (Photograph, Furuta family collection, 1945). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

   In 1988, the federal government issued a formal apology, redress and reparation for the violation of civil liberties, as President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.  At the signing, he talked about meeting the Masuda family---congregants of the Wintersburg Japanese Church---in 1945 as an Army captain accompanying General Joe Stillwell.  Read more of this history at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/06/masudas-national-civil-liberties-icons.html and http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2016/05/kazuo-masuda-memorial-day-program-may-30.html

   Join Historic Wintersburg and stop by our information table at the Day of Remembrance 2017, 2 p.m., Saturday, February 18, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. More information at http://www.janm.org/events/2017/02/#18

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.