Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. February 19, 1942, It forced almost 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry—most of them U.S. citizens—from their homes and into federal detention camps scattered throughout the West, including California, Arizona, Colorado Wyoming, Utah, and Arkansas. Most spent the war behind barbed wire and under armed guard in remote areas—without due justice. Japanese Americans were assumed guilty of potential disloyalty solely on the basis of race. -Smithsonian