After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, prejudice
against Japanese reached a peak, culminating in the passing of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The
discriminatory law created exclusionary zones for Japanese and
Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, Washington, and
Arizona, forcing their internment with no regards to their
country of birth or citizenship. Residents and business owners
of Little Tokyo were forced to abandon their home and lives
overnight, leaving behind the center of L.A.’s Japanese American
community as not much more than a ghost town. Conditions inside
the camps were not ideal, with no plumbing or cooking facilities
in the initial months. Internees could not move freely outside
the camps unless authorized, though a few did have jobs outside
of the camps. Japanese in L.A. were moved mainly to Manzanar in
Owens Valley; those who ended up in cold weather facilities like
Wyoming saw temperatures drop to less than zero degrees
fahrenheit. Many families w