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With its back against the wall and fear, chaos and insecurity at an all time high, the United States recklessly turned on its own values, beliefs and most importantly, its citizens. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, legal Japanese Americans were no longer viewed as equals and citizens of the United States. This incident effectively transformed them from friends to enemies overnight. Despite the lack of any concrete evidence via trials or hearings to prove innocence or guilt, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land and were seen as a threat to the United States. As a result, there was a general consensus that the Issei, Japanese immigrants, and the Nisei, children of the immigrants born in the United States, needed to be removed from the west coast, where collusion with the Japanese was easy and believed to be likely (Exploring the Japanese American Internment). This fear and sense of insecurity within the American people eventually snowballed into a widespread anti-Japanese sentiment and hatred .
With tensions rising and growing public hysteria, President Roosevelt and the United States government was forced to take action. This came through the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, a deliberate and "necessary " move that allowed for the mass deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps" (Historical Overview of the Japanese American Internment). For the United States government, the logic behind the new order was simple. The internment of Japanese Americans was necessary in order to "prevent " domestic espionage/sabotage and more importantly, provide a sense of security and safety among the American population. Unfortunately, for the Japanese-Americans, this meant something completely and tragically different.
"Imagine that one day you received notice that you and your whole family must be ready to move within 48 hours.
