Japanese Internment
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed off on Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, hundreds of thousands of people of Japanese descent were interned in concentration camps across the United States as a response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941.
At the time, many people were supportive of the move to intern Japanese people. Editorial articles in a number of major newspapers expressed their acceptance of EO 9066, such as an article published in the Los Angeles Times in 1942, less than two weeks after the executive order was published, which said, “They are for Japan; they will aid Japan in every way possible by espionage, sabotage and other activity; and they need to be restrained for the safety of California and the United States.” Another editorial in the Los Angeles Times had a more paternalistic viewpoint, saying “The Japs in these centers in the United States have been afforded the very best of treatment, together with food and living quarters far better than many of them ever knew before, and a minimum amount of restraint.”
Even though the legality of the executive order was upheld by the Supreme Court in December 1944, President Roosevelt actually suspended the order that same month. Executive Order 9066 was ultimately rescinded by President Gerald R. Ford on February 19, 1976, exactly 34 years after it was initially signed.
Since then, the internment of Japanese Americans has been frequently referenced in American popular culture. For instance, in The Karate Kid Daniel discovers a box of Mr. Miyagi’s possessions, which show that Mr. Miyagi’s wife and child had died while they were interned at Manzanar, one of the most famous internment camps. A number of other movies, including Under the Blood Red Sun, The Legacy of Heart Mountain, and Come See the Paradise, have included Japanese internment as a major aspect of their storylines and explored how the war and internment affected people’s lives.
Perhaps more notably, the Broadway musical Allegiance, was the first one to be created, written, produced, and directed by Asian Americans. The cast starred many major Asian American actors and actresses, including George Takei, Lea Salonga, and Telly Leung. Takei used this musical as platform and starting point for discussing some of the United States’ policies on immigration.
Sources:
Wikipedia section on Japanese Internment, specifically in popular culture
Wikipedia section on Japanese Internment and how it was depicted in news editorials of the time
Wikipedia page about The Karate Kid
Wikipedia page about Under the Blood Red Sun
New York Times review of Allegiance
George Takei’s interview with Variety magazine on what Allegiance means to him