Sacramento, California - Governor Gavin Newsom today issued a proclamation declaring February 19, 2024, as “A Day of Remembrance: Japanese American Evacuation.”

PROCLAMATION

Issued on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 authorized the incarceration of thousands of loyal United States citizens because of their Japanese ancestry.
 
Over two and a half years, the U.S. government forcibly removed 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast - without a trial or due process - and imprisoned them in internment camps in unfamiliar lands. Uprooted from their lives and livelihoods, they endured miserable conditions and treatment by military guards.
 
Despite these experiences, thousands of young Japanese American men enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, bravely fighting to defend the nation that was abridging their own freedoms at home. We honor their sacrifice, as well as the resilience of thousands of Japanese American families to reclaim and rebuild their lives after the war, although many returned from the camps to find much of their property stolen or sold. Decades after, the U.S. government formally apologized to survivors of the camps.
 
Discrimination and xenophobia drove the incarceration of Japanese Americans - a betrayal of our most sacred values as a nation that we must never repeat. This stain on our history should remind us to always stand up for our fellow Americans, regardless of their national origin or immigration status, and protect the civil rights and liberties that we hold dear.
 
I ask that all Californians join me in solemn remembrance of the issuance of Executive Order 9066 on this day in 1942. I similarly ask that all Californians commemorate the rescission of Executive Order 9066 by President Gerald R. Ford on February 19, 1976.
 
NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim February 19, 2025, as “A Day of Remembrance: Japanese American Evacuation.”

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 18th day of February 2025.

GAVIN NEWSOM
Governor of California

ATTEST:
SHIRLEY N. WEBER, Ph.D.
Secretary of State