APM Reports documentary: 'Order 9066' part 3
The conclusion of the APM Reports documentary series, "Order 9066."
In 1942, just months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. As a result, some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes on the West Coast and sent to one of 10 "relocation" camps, where they were imprisoned behind barbed wire for the length of the war. Two-thirds of them were American citizens.
Order 9066, a three-episode series from APM Reports, chronicles the history of this incarceration through vivid, first-person accounts of those who lived through it. The series explores how this shocking violation of American democracy came to pass, and its legacy in the present.
Order 9066 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, 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 U.S. government, and much more.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Order 9066 is narrated by Sab Shimono and Pat Suzuki, veteran actors and stage performers who were both incarcerated at the Amache camp in Colorado.
Produced by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis, this is the first major radio documentary series to chronicle this crucial and often overlooked period in American history.
Chapter three:
At war's end, after the prison camps were shut down, many found they were unwelcome in their home communities. Many returned to discover that their property or land had been stolen. This chapter features people who flourished in postwar America and those whose lives were destroyed by Order 9066. And listeners will hear about the long struggle by Japanese-Americans to secure redress for the hardship and losses produced by incarceration.