Generations of Americans have used military service to expand notions of citizenship and advance civil rights. As a result, military service has become a tool to broaden the concept of “the people” and what it means to be an American.

 

Learn more about the courageous men and women of Japanese ancestry from Hawaii and the mainland United States who served the in U.S. Army during World War II, while some of their families were placed in War Relocation Authority Confinement Sites.

 

Second-generation Japanese Americans, known as Nisei, demanded the right to join the armed forces during World War II. On February 9, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. 122,000 men, women, and children were sent to incarceration camps throughout the United States. Further, the government classified males of Japanese ancestry as enemy aliens. This classification disqualified them from military service. The Army later loosened this restriction in June 1942. Despite the odds, thousands of Nisei Soldiers bravely served in World War II.

 

In this We the People talk, examine Executive Order 9906, its impact on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, and how military service was used as a strategy to advance civil rights.

 

Register for this VIRTUAL History Talk on Thursday, May 29 at 12 p.m. ET

 

Register for this IN-PERSON History Talk on Thursday, May 29, at 12 p.m. ET