Executive Order 9066 -- February 19, 2017

ourdocuments.gov

Seventy-five years ago today, on 19-February-1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which set up military zones in the United States and allowed for the internment of Japanese-Americans and for restrictions on German-Americans and Italian-Americans. 

When I grew up, many neighbors and parents of friends had been interned.  They generally did not want to talk about it. My Italian-American grandmother had to follow a strict curfew. 

When I was in college, we argued about whether this was necessary.  It was not.  There was Japanese spying and sabotage in Hawaii, but they didn't intern Japanese-Hawaiians because it would have destroyed the economy.