Imagine your entire family being told they had to pack their bags but only as much as one could carry. Then imagine being taken from your home and bused to an internment camp somewhere out in the middle of the cold and windy desert. According to the United States government, this was being done for your own protection. You"ll have to leave your friends, farms, boats, cars and other personal property. This is what happened to the Wakatsuki family and many other Japanese-American citizens as told in the book Farewell to Manzanar. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made this happen by signing Executive Order 9066, which authorized the military to carry out the evacuation of thousands of innocent Japanese-American people to an unknown territory. They were also considered to be a threat to the nation's security. You"ll notice this was never the case. In fact, the Japanese-American proved their loyalty to the U.S. one hundred fold by becoming a part of the U.S. Army that helped win WWII.
On February 19, 1942, approximately two months after the United States of America entered war with Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. It authorized the War Department authority to define military areas in the western states and to exclude from them anyone who might threaten the war effort (Wakatsuki Houston & Houston 15). That's when the United States Military forced hundreds of thousands of people of Japanese ancestry from their homes to one of ten internment camps. They uprooted families and placed them in confined areas that were bounded by barbed wire and armed guards located in towers throughout the camps.
