Citizens of America. They met here.

ISSEI: Literally, “first generation.” The first generation of Japanese to immigrate to the United States, largely from 1885 to 1920. Most of these immigrants had lived in the U.S. for decades by the time the U.S. became involved in World War II. The U.S. government labeled the issei “enemy aliens.” They had been denied American citizenship since the earlier 1900s. Naturalized citizenship wasn’t offered to Japanese Americans as an option until 1952.

NISEI: Literally, “second generation.” American-born children of Japanese immigrants. Most first-generation immigrants arrived between 1885 and 1920. Two-thirds of Japanese Americans imprisoned in the U.S. during World War II were nisei. The term nisei is sometimes used in reference to any child of Japanese American descent born between the 1910s and the 1930s.

SANSEI: Literally, “third generation.” American-born grandchildren of first-generation immigrants from Japan. This term sometimes also loosely refers to Japanese Americans born between 1945 and 1964.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066: With Executive Order 9066, signed on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed the Secretary of War and his appointed military commanders to designate parts of the U.S. as “military areas.” The order led to the detention-camp imprisonment of all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Although race was not specifically addressed, it was understood that the directive was to exclude and detain anyone of Japanese ancestry. For over three years, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and transferred to internment camps. Over two-thirds of those detained were American citizens.

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