President Franklin Roosevelt had profound, even heartbreaking decisions to make in the months after the Japanese attack on the United State's naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Among these was one that impacted American citizens of Japanese ancestry in ways that echo into the 21st century.
From American Public Media, WHQR presents Order 9066, the story of our government's incarceration of more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent for the duration of World War II. https://www.apmreports.org/order-9066
WHQR will run this 3-part special over the following few weeks.
- Wednesday, August 1st at noon -- Part 1 (repeats on Sunday at 3pm)
- Wednesday, August 15th at noon -- Part 2 (repeats on Sunday at 2pm)
- Thursday, August 16th at noon -- Part 3 (repeats on Sunday at 3pm)
About the Series:
Order 9066: Japanese American Incarceration in WWII
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, just months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes on the West Coast and sent to one of ten "relocation" camps, where they were imprisoned behind barbed wire for the length of the war. Two-thirds of them were American citizens.
Order 9066 chronicles the history of this incarceration through vivid, first-person accounts of those who lived through it. With archival audio, historical context, and deeply personal narratives, the series offers audiences a nuanced and memorable account of how this shocking violation of American democracy came to pass, and its legacy in the present.
This moving, three-episode series is hosted by Sab Shimono and Pat Suzuki, veteran actors and stage performers who were both incarcerated at the Amache camp in Colorado. The series covers the racist atmosphere of the time, the camps' makeshift living quarters and the extraordinary ways people adapted; the fierce patriotism many Japanese Americans continued to feel and the ways they were divided against each other as they were forced to answer questions of loyalty; the movement for redress that eventually led to a formal apology from the US government, and much more.
Order 9066 is produced as a collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.