On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (Prange et al., 1981: p .174). On February 19, 1942, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War and military commanders to prescribe areas of territory as excludable military zones (Roosevelt, 1942). In fact, this order sanctioned the identification, deportation, and internment of innocent Japanese Americans in war relocation camps in the western half of the United States. During the spring and summer of 1942, an estimated nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were moved from their homes along the West Coast and to Hawaii and detained in concentration camps operated by the U.S. government (Daniels, 2004: p.3). About two-thirds of these men and women were nisei (second generation Japanese) or sansei (third generation) Japanese Americans, the other third were issei (first generation) Japanese immigrants living in the United States at the time. While Japanese of the issei generation were born in Japan and were not entitled to U.S. citizenship, members of the nisei and sanei generations were born in the United States and therefore were legal American citizens. Regardless of this citizenship distinction, however, the American powers perceived all of these men and women as a towering threat to the security of the United States. Although the term “revolution from above” is often used to explain the method of GHQ reform in post-war Japan (Dower, 1999: p.69), I argue that a similar motivation was in operation in the US's efforts to isolate all Japanese descendants in America and subject them to American social coercion... middle of paper... .... States: CMH Publications, 2006. Print.Our work in Japan. Write. Theodor S. Geisel. Ed. Elmo Williams. 1945. Film.Prange, Gordon W., Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon. At dawn we slept: the untold story of Pearl Harbor. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Executive Order: Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas.” United States Government General Documents: Record Group 11, National Archives (February 19, 1942). Network. January 9, 2014. .Stanley, Jerry. I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment. New York: Crown Publishers, 1996. Print. Wu, Hui. “Writing and Teaching Behind Barbed Wire: An Exile Composition Lesson in a Japanese-American Internment Camp.” College Composition and Communication 59.2 (2007): 237-262. Network. January 10 2014.