Fifty years ago this month, President Gerald Ford began the process of righting a historic wrong, signing an executive order that declared the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent to have been morally and constitutionally wrong:
We now know what we should have known then—not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans have been and continue to be written in America’s history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation.
There was both a moral and legal component to Ford’s action. 1976 was the bicentennial year in which America celebrated 200 years of independence. America was reflecting on her history, 34 years removed from President Franklin Roosevelt’s executive orders 9066 and 9102 which led to the removal of over 100,000 Japanese Americans from the West coast to seven interior locations a few months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There was also legal consideration in 1976. Though the end of hostilities in World War II signaled the end of the federal infrastructure and the purported national security rationale for the internment, President Ford’s order effectively rescinded FDR’s action.
Though his wasn’t the first action to address the internment, Ford’s executive order was a significant catalyst. In 1971, President Nixon signed a repeal of the Emergency Detention Act—one of several wartime powers the legislative body had given Roosevelt. In 1980, President Carter signed a law that established a commission and published a report. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Rights Act of 1988, which officially apologized for Roosevelt’s actions and authorized a payment of $20,000 to every Japanese American who was interned. In 2018, the Supreme Court officially overturned Korematsu, the Supreme Court Decision that upheld internment, with Justice John Roberts writing that the earlier decision was “wrongly decided.” That decision was clear, but it came late. In 2023, the Attorney General of California officially apologized on behalf of the state for its participation in internment.
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at World Magazine )
