From 12/7 to 9/11 Lessons on the Japanese American Internment Main Exhibit Through June

February 2007 marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the issuing of Executive Order 9066. In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, this order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe military areas: "...in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commanders may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with such respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion." Within a year more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry -- including 175 UCLA students -- had been removed from their homes and communities and imprisoned in camps ranging from California to Arkansas. The vast majority of these so called "internees" were American citizens or legal residents on the West Coast whose only "crime" was being of Japanese descent. The lessons of December 7 and Executive Order 9066 still resonate today, as UCLA law professor Jerry Kang compellingly argued in a September 2001 editorial. "The terrorist attacks on 9-11 have frequently been analogized to Pearl Harbor...," he began. "Just as that attack launched us into World War II, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have launched us into a new kind of war, against terrorism. But waging this sort of borderless war poses great risks, not only to the soldiers commanded to fight but also to core American values." "From 12/7 to 9/11" portrays the impact of Executive Order 9066 on those swept up in its grasp and suggests its implications for post 9/11 government policy today. Drawn from the holdings of the Charles E. Young Research Library and its Department of Special Collections, the Asian American Studies Center Reading Room/Library, University Archives, and various private collections, it uses artwork and photographs to tell personal stories that raise serious questions about loyalty, racism, and government expediency and that plead for tolerance and understanding of other cultures, religions, and points of view. The exhibit is organized by Lane Hirabayashi, Marjorie Lee, Robert Nakamura, Don Nakanishi, and Irum Shiekh of the UCLA Department of Asian American Studies and the Asian American Studies Center; and Norma Corral, Dawn Setzer, and Ellen Watanabe of the UCLA Library.

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