Just one day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in the House of Representatives to address a joint session of Congress. As the country reeled from the surprise Sunday morning attack that claimed 2,403 American lives, Roosevelt boldly decried the mission, memorably referring to the event as “a day which will live in infamy.”
In a painful stroke of irony, the United States would respond in part with a spell of infamy of its own. Just two months after the attack, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, initiating a campaign to round up innocent Americans of Japanese descent, bus them to detention centers in remote areas across the nation, and keep them incarcerated, some for several years until the end of World War II. The evolution was a violation of the civil rights of tens of thousands of American citizens, leading to disrupted lives, separated families, surrender of property and loss of dignity.
The oldest public university in the West, San José State University holds a deep and rich history of diversity, tolerance and social justice. Unfortunately, it also played a role in this shameful evolution. Serving as a processing site for Santa Clara County, San José State College (as it was then known) actively and knowingly participated in the effort, with administrators enlisting their own students and employees to process nearly 2,500 members of the local community for relocation. More than 100 San José State students were among those incarcerated, forced to abandon studies that many of them never returned to complete.
All told, more than 120,000 people — nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens — fell victim to the initiative, none ever to face any charges related to disloyalty. Eventually released, some never returned to their original homes, or even a sense of normalcy. The campaign was hasty. It was inhumane. And it was wrong.
So too was our university’s involvement in it. Fueled by impulse and hysteria, the relocation and incarceration efforts are a stain on our nation’s history, their impact affecting the lives of members of our own community both then and now.
In the decades since, small measures of justice have been served. For instance, one of the buildings on our campus that was used for relocation processing was in 1997 renamed Yoshihiro Uchida Hall, in honor of the Japanese American judo legend whose own studies at SJSU were interrupted by World War II. Additionally, former San José Mayor, Congressmember and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta (himself sent to a detention center as a child) co-sponsored a bill that became the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing for reparations to be paid to those who survived the ordeal. They each also received a written apology from the president of the United States.
And today, I offer my own apology, on behalf of our university, to the entire San José community. To those personally affected by this dark period in American history, and to those feeling the impact as allies for racial equality and social justice: I am sorry.
Monday marks the 82nd anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. Our university, which has designated the date, Feb. 19, as an annual Day of Remembrance, will host a day-long program dedicated to remembering the role of the executive order in the incarceration campaign. More than 80 years later, we cannot go back in time to change what happened; but, we can — and will — refuse to forget the pain and indignity inflicted on not only U.S. citizens, but human beings, including on our own campus.
Cynthia Teniente-Matson is president of San Jose State University.