Michelle
Amy
ravynchloe
digabooo
karruttopp
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law which allowed local military commanders to set up areas called “exclusion zones.” Approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese were sent to these “War Relocation Camps” from the West Coast and other areas of the country (though all of the West Coast were relocated). This internment lasted until January 2, 1945 when the exclusion order was rescinded. The last camp was not closed until 1946.
There were a small group of Japanese-Americans who refused to go to the camps, and Gordon Hirabayashi was one of them. For his refusal, he was sent to prison for over a year. Although the government sentenced him to prison, they had no money to get him from his home in Washington state to Arizona, so he hitched his way there often sleeping in ditches on the side of the road. When he arrived two-weeks late, he was told his paperwork wasn’t in order and to go see a movie and have dinner. Once he returned his paperwork was in order.
Years later, Hirabayashi fought all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction. In 1987, his conviction was overturned by the 9th District Court of Appeals.
In 1999, in the Coronado State Forest in Arizona the Catalina Honor Camp was renamed the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site in his honor.
Gordon Hirabayashi Links
Gordon Hirabayashi – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Hirabayashi
Gordon Hirabayashi Has Died; He Refused To Go To WWII Internment Camp – NPR
Japanese-American Hero Dies at 93 – Video from San Francisco’s KGO-TV
