February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese attack Attack on Pearl Harbor— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing internment, or incarceration, of Japanese Americans. This is because less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Eleanor urged non-Japanese Americans not to turn their backs on Japanese Americans in her syndicated column “My Day”. It was upsetting news for First Lady Roosevelt.

“We citizens will report anything suspicious to the appropriate authorities.” she wrote In her December 16 column, she admits that the United States was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy. “But the vast majority of our citizens, born of ties to these various nations, should not suddenly feel no longer American.”

As first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt could not and did not want to publicly oppose her husband’s executive order. (Despite their disagreements, she was a staunch protector of her FDR image and legacy. Threat.

Against “group evacuation”

By the fall of 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt knew the United States might enter World War II. And she was worried about what it would mean for Japanese Americans, at the time the United States was allowing the first generation of Japanese immigrants, known as Issei, to become citizens under her Naturalization Act of 1790. was still prohibited. Nisei, known as Nisei, were born in the United States and therefore retained their U.S. citizenship. However, this did not protect them from racism and discrimination.

The first lady contacted the Justice Department about what would happen to Japanese Americans in the event of war, writes Greg Robinson, a history professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Executive Order FDR and the Internment of Japanese AmericansOn December 4, 1941, three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the First Lady publicly stated that the government would not discriminate against law-abiding noncitizens residing in the United States if the country entered the war.

It was soon proven to be untrue. After the United States declared war on Japan on her Dec. 8, the Treasury Department froze all assets of Issei residents. Eleanor stepped in to persuade the Treasury to ease restrictions so her family could withdraw her $100 a month. In the following months, prominent white Americans in government and media began calling for something even more drastic. It is a “mass evacuation” of citizens and non-Nikkei citizens.

The First Lady was immune to the anti-Japanese misinformation circulating among white Americans at the time. By January 1942, she mistakenly believed that the government had revealed some Japanese Americans to be spies. (actually the government never been identified An ethnically Japanese spy who lived in the United States during the war.) Still, she opposed the idea of ​​mass evacuation.

One of her allies within the FDR administration was Attorney General Francis Biddle, who tried to advise the president against mass evacuations. However, when it became clear that FDR would issue an executive order authorizing the deportation and internment of Japanese Americans, Biddle refused the Justice Department’s intervention.

Assisting in the release of detainees

Under Executive Order 9066, the United States evicted more than 100,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and incarcerated them into remote military camps. Each camp was surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. When detainees protested dangerous conditions and inadequate food rations, the military police often responded with violence.

Publicly, Eleanor does not criticize this internment. Privately, she began a correspondence with a Japanese American in the camp. And she started advocating for a program to transport Nisei students out of the camp so they could go to college. her efforts National Japanese American Student Relocation Council May 1942. That year she also asked the War Department if she could visit one of the camps. They refused her request.

When she again asked if she could visit the camp in early 1943, government officials were more docile. By then, the Army had “opened up enlistment to Japanese American male volunteers, and Franklin Roosevelt upheld their allegiance,” Robinson said in an interview. History.com“He made a public statement that Americanism was a matter of mind and heart, not of ancestry.”

April 1943 — Shortly after learning that the United States had not actually found Japanese American spies, as Eleanor had previously believed — First Lady approves Gila River Relocation Center in Pinal County, Arizona made a public visit.In her “My Day” column, she About visit, she praised the internees for being hardworking, law-abiding, and loyal to the United States.in an interview with of los angeles times Published that month, she said, “The sooner we release young Japanese from the camps, the better.”

“She’s very careful not to say, ‘My husband was wrong,’ or ‘This policy was wrong,'” said a senior fellow and resident historian at the Roosevelt Institute. The Last 100 Days: Wartime and Peacetime in FDRInstead, she tried to tell them it would be safe to close those camps.

Preserving FDR’s legacy

In December 1944, the U.S. Army issued a proclamation allowing Japanese Americans to begin leaving the internment camps immediately. In March 1946, the last camp was finally closed.

[AfterFDR’sdeathin1945EleanorRooseveltwrotetoPresidentHarryTrumanabouttheracismJapaneseAmericansfaceduponre-enteringAmericansocietyafterimprisonmentPubliclyhoweversheremainedmostlysilentabouttheJapaneseinternment[1945年のFDRの死後、エレノア・ルーズベルトはハリー・トルーマン大統領に手紙を送り、日系アメリカ人が投獄後に米国社会に再入国する際に直面していた人種差別について述べました。しかし公には、彼女は日本の抑留についてほとんど沈黙を守っていた。

One notable exception appeared in her foreword to her 1952 book The Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese Art in the War CampsIn it, Robinson said, “She claimed that the government took action to detain Japanese Americans for fear of rioting against them.”

This is the baffling and objectively false claim of a woman who opposed the internment of Japanese Americans and continued to uphold the legacy of the man who authorized the internment even after his death.