Journal Entry: Japanese Internment

February 20, 1942

Dear Journal,

On December 7th 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked. US citizens feared another attack and war hysteria seized the country. State representatives put pressure on President Roosevelt to take action against those of Japanese descent living in the US. Yesterday President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066. The Executive Order 9066 allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones", from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington. Under the terms of the Order, some 120,000 people of our Japanese descent living in the US were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. These internment camps included Jerome, Arkansas; Amache (Granda), Colorado; Tule Lake, California; and Manzanar, California. We all came from the West Coast of the United States. More than two-thirds of us appear to be American citizens and most of us are children under the age of eighteen. Some have been separated from our families. My parents and I were separated and I never saw them again after yesterday. I cried and cried for my parents and my little brother but all of them were sent off to a different camp. They were all sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming and I’m here alone at Gila River, Arizona. They are so far away and life in the internment camps has been hard. We were only allowed to bring a few possessions. I only brought my baby doll and my blanket. I felt safe with these items, even at my old home. Before we were sent here our house was evacuated within forty-eight hours and my blanket and my baby doll is the only thing that I had left in my hand. We were housed in barracks, which was a group of buildings used to house military personnel. We were really uncomfortable and we ate and washed our clothes in the communal areas which were untidy and unsafe. It was a difficult time for all of us. Luckily one of my older cousins was placed in the same internment camp as I. We spent most of our time together and since she was older, she took care of me. The camps were guarded by military personnel and those who disobeyed the rules, or who were deemed to be troublesome were sent to the Tule Lake facility located in the California Rocky Mountains. Internees over the age of seventeen were given a loyalty test. Those who refused to take the loyalty oath were sent to Tula Lake and the camp was renamed a segregation centre. Living at this internment camp has been very emotional for everyone.