Historical Society Revisits ’72 Exhibit on the Internment of Japanese Americans & Book ‘Executive Order 9066’

The California Historical Society has an upcoming program to celebrate their landmark 1972 exhibition and book of historic photographs, Executive Order 9066. This Thursday’s discussion will include individuals and descendants of those who visited the original exhibit, as well as the curator of the Oakland Museum of California’s Dorothea Lange collection of historic and socially significant American photographs.

This 1972 exhibit was the first to publicly explore the World War II incarceration of Japanese American citizens and people of Japanese descent. Before traveling nationally, the exhibition previously premiered at both the San Francisco’s Legion of Honor and UC Berkeley’s University Art Museum.

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This past Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, a U.S. presidential declaration signed and issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, during World War II. The order converted the West Coast to a war zone, clearing the way for the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans to concentration camps. More than 110,000 Japanese-American men, women, and children were confined to these camps. It wasn’t until December 1944 that President Roosevelt finally suspended Executive Order 9066.

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After the discussion, California Historical Society’s reference librarians and archivists will provide an open house in the North Baker Research Library and will show collections related to the Executive Order and CHS exhibition and book, EO 9066. Speakers at this event include Pat Hayashi, Drew Heath Johnson, Tracy Takayanagi-Hui, and Chuck Wollenberg.

Pat Hyashi currently serves on the Advisory Committee for the California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, a program aimed at ensuring that the lessons of the Japanese American concentration camps are not forgotten. Drew Heath Johnson is the Curator of Photography & Visual Culture at the Oakland Museum of California. Tracy Takayangi-Hui is a volunteer working in the Friends of Topaz Museum group. The Topaz Museum in Delta, Utah has extensive artifacts from this divisive period and is located on the same site as the Topaz Internment Camp, where 11,000 people were incarcerated. Chuck Wollenberg is a historian, teaching at Berkeley City College, and is the convener of the California Studies Seminar at UC Berkeley.

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+++ California Historical Society, 678 Mission St (between 2nd & 3rd St), SF
Thursday, February 23, 6pm

The event is free of charge, however, limited tickets remain and should be reserved in advanced. For more information, visit the event’s webpage.

 

Written by Carlos Olin Montalvo

Follow me @carlosolin