Executive Order 9066

An “enemy alien” refers to a foreign-born resident in a country that is at war with the resident’s native or ancestral country. After the US declared war against Japan in December 1941, people born in the Axis countries (Japan, Germany, and Italy) who were resident in the US became defined as enemy aliens and were thus subject to being searched, questioned, arrested, or removed.

One of three types of official presidential documents, an “executive order” is a “signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government” (“What Is an Executive Order?” American Bar Association, 2021). Executive orders are numbered consecutively, e.g., Order 9066. They are not legislation, do not require approval by Congress, and can only be overturned or formally terminated by another executive order by a sitting president.

Issei and Nisei are Japanese terms referring to the first two generations of Japanese Americans. Issei (Japanese for “first generation”) denotes the immigrant Japanese, and Nisei (Japanese for “second generation”) refers to the first generation’s American-born sons and daughters.

“Relocation center” was the official government name for the detention camps to which Japanese American evacuees were sent, starting in 1942. They were, in essence, concentration camps, with bare-bones living conditions and surveillance by armed guards. They were also known as internment camps or prison camps.