Japanese Americans mark 84 years since WWII incarceration order

Eighty-four years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order that locked up 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps, the community marked the anniversary last week with ceremonies, acts of resistance and a renewed push to preserve a history many fear is increasingly at risk of being lost.

Remember history: Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942, authorizing the forced removal and concentration of around 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them U.S. citizens, in camps across remote parts of the country. In the words of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), they were condemned for having the “face of the enemy,” deprived of their livelihoods and legal protections without formal accusation. Among those affected was Ed Nakamura, now 100, who arrived at Tule Lake with no savings and just little more than the clothes on his back. He was later drafted into the Army and volunteered for its military intelligence service.

Not all went without resistance. Jim Tanimoto, now 102 and the sole surviving Block 42 resister, was among the men at Tule Lake who refused a wartime loyalty questionnaire they considered a violation of their rights as citizens. In the San Pedro area, Issei fishermen on Terminal Island were taken into federal custody first. Every remaining resident was then expelled, and their waterfront enclave was leveled and never rebuilt.

2026 observances: Japanese American communities held events across the country to mark the anniversary. In San Francisco’s Japantown, the Bay Area Day of Remembrance convened Feb. 15, with advocates drawing parallels between the wartime concentration and President Donald Trump’s draconian immigration enforcement actions. “It’s important to remember what happened and hopefully make sure it never happens again, and, of course, perhaps stand in solidarity with those other immigrant communities that are currently being targeted by the same laws that put our community in prison,” Jeffery Matsuoka, chair of the Bay Area Day of Remembrance, told KGO.

In San Pedro, Harbor Area Peace Patrol hosted a prayer and origami program Thursday at the Terminal Island Japanese Fishing Village Memorial. The event was co-sponsored by Nikkei Progressives, which warned that the area is a known ICE staging location with agents armed. Meanwhile, Densho marked the anniversary by unveiling the Densho Public Index of Japanese American Collections, a new initiative to catalog dispersed archival holdings. Many of them are difficult to access or at risk of being lost across universities, museums and private families.

Lessons learned: For many Japanese Americans, the Day of Remembrance is a reminder that the government’s formal response took decades. President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 more than four decades after the concentration, issuing a formal apology and $20,000 to each survivor. “I think it was long deserving. A long time coming,” Nakamura told CBS LA. He was among the Japanese American soldiers later awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for valor overseas while facing discrimination at home.

Still, that work remains unfinished. Densho has warned that histories of immigrant communities and people of color are increasingly being sidelined or erased from the public record, making the protection of Japanese American archives all the more critical. Tanimoto sees the stakes plainly. “I said I hope not, but I’m sure it’s going to happen again. And I don’t know what nationality or what ancestry is going to be involved, but I think it’s going to happen again,” he told the Sacramento Bee.