Radio Rootz' This Day in History

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Key 1

On this day, February 19, in 1942

  • produced by Hana Georg
  • in

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. These four little numbers sentenced some 120,000 people of Japanese descent to a harsh life in American concentration camps. Apparently because of Pearl Harbor, all persons of Japanese decent were potential spies. More than 2/3 of those who were captured were American citizens and at least half of them were children. By the end of the WWII, only ten people were actually convicted of spying for Japan, all of who were white. Talk about racial profiling!