In April 1942, more than a thousand American men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry in Venice, Santa Monica, and Malibu reported to the corner of Venice and Lincoln Boulevards with only what they could carry after Civilian Exclusion Order No. 7 gave families only days to dispose of their property and possessions. Buses took them directly to the American concentration camp at Manzanar in Inyo County, where many were incarcerated for more than three years. After Japan's December 7 attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii drew the United States into World War II, the Department of Justice detained Japanese American community leaders because of unsubstantiated fear of collusion with Japan. On February 18, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, empowering the U.S. Army to declare areas of Washington, Oregon, and California militarily sensitive and forcing the removal of 120,000 Japanese and American citizens of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast to imprisonment in temporary assembly centers at fairgrounds and race tracks. Months later, they were taken to ten American concentration camps under the War Relocation Authority. This forced removal and imprisonment, without regard to due process or the writ of habeas corpus, violated their rights under the U.S. Constitution. Manzanar, the first of the ten War Relocation Authority camps completed, incarcerated more than 10,000 persons of Japanese ancestry.
