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Feb. 19 is the official Japanese American Day of Remembrance. On this date in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Order 9066, resulting in the relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans.

 is a three-hour documentary series produced by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis of APM Reports.

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 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 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 U.S. government; and much more.

This is the first major radio documentary series to chronicle this crucial and often overlooked period in American history.

In chapter one, listeners will hear about the wrenching process of leaving home for prison camp and the arrival at makeshift assembly centers — and how incarcerated people adapted to the harsh conditions and made the best of their situation by organizing schools, sports teams, art groups and newspapers.

APM Reports: Order 9066

"Order 9066" is a three-hour documentary series produced by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis of APM Reports.


APM documentary about Japanese-American internment in WWII: "Order 9066"

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