In the early months of 1942, the public’s fears of a mainland invasion by Japanese forces was echoed by West Coast politicians, who called for the removal of all people of Japanese descent. Anger over the attack on Pearl Harbor led to race-based assumptions that anyone with a Japanese face must identify with the enemy. The desire to eliminate economic competitions from the Issei further reinforced the public pressure to expel the 120,000 resident aliens and their U.S. citizen offspring alike. The FBI and naval intelligence did not see the need for a mass exclusion, and the Department of Justice argued that the move would violate constitutional rights. Nevertheless, President Franklin Roosevelt listened to the Army officers who insisted that anyone with ethnic ties to Japan, whether a U.S. citizen or not, was inherently untrustworthy. On February 19, 1942, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Army to declare military exclusion zones and remove “any and all persons” it deemed dangerous. The order was applied to people of Japanese ancestry but not to their Italian or German counterparts. Neither were the 158,000 Nikkei in Hawaii removed en masse. Very few voices argued against the mass "evacuation" from the western states. Beginning in March 1942, the stunned Nikkei were escorted away from their homes and businesses by armed soldiers for destinations unknown.
Mass removal（1942年）
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Courtesy of the Museum of History & Industry
Excerpt from Densho Archive
We had to wait for the big army trucks to come and pick us up. We have quite a number in our family. There were seven of us, because my dad was gone. And we have our suitcases. Then you have all the rest of the Japanese people there and all their luggage. So we just piled there with everybody else, waiting to go on the ferry. When the trucks came by, of course, it's all soldiers with their guns, and they stand there at attention. That was another scary moment for us because we're standing there with all the military around us as if we had really done something bad. Well, I didn't want to look at anybody I knew there, because I felt ashamed to be having to go away. Then when the ferry dock went off and we landed in Seattle, we were marched over to the train on the tracks right there. I recall seeing all those people hanging over the viaduct looking at us, and I felt like we were strange animals because they were all there just to see you leave. It was a very scary experience for us, not knowing if and when we would be back at all, and where we were going。
Nisei taken from Bainbridge Island, Washington, to Manzanar, California, incarceration camp