Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, calling for the exclusion of all Japanese and Japanese Americans from "designated military areas." Although the United States was at war with Germany and Italy, few Italian and German Americans were placed in incarceration camps.
This March 1942 photo shows Japanese Americans registering at the Seattle chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. The JACL oversaw the registration, which was intended to give the League a record of all Japanese Americans in Seattle, to prevent family separations in the event of a chaotic removal.
Caption information source: "Japanese Here Prepare for Evacuation," by Sidney Copeland, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 11, 1942, page 1.
Handwritten on negative: Jap registration.
Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): March 1942.
ID Number: PI28034
Date: 1942
Physical Description: 1 safety film negative : b&w ; 4 x 5 in.
