Steve Cohen: “Born of war hysteria and racial prejudice, Executive Order 9066, issued 2 months after the United States entered World…”

“Born of war hysteria and racial prejudice, Executive Order 9066, issued 2 months after the United States entered World War II, would come to represent a stain on America's reputation. Pursuant to Executive Order 9066, 120,000 Japanese Americans were ordered to leave behind their entire lives, and bring only their bare necessities to an unknown place with an unknown future. They spent 3 long years in internment camps in Arizona, Northern and Central California, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arkansas. And when the war ended and they attempted to return home, many found their houses looted. Others lost their homes to foreclosure in their absence, and many could not find jobs to feed and shelter their families. One of those wrongly interned was our own Representative Mike Honda from California. He was a young boy when he and his family were ordered to report to the Merced Assembly Center in California, along with close to 5,000 other Japanese Americans. He and his family were sent from Merced to internment in Colorado. Sadly, it took our government almost 50 years to formally apologize for this mistake and offer compensation to those who suffered through internment.”