Day of Infamy Speech

FDR’s speech portrays the War as a Fight Between Good and Evil, characterizing the Empire of Japan (and by implication its people) as uniquely untrustworthy. This messaging had direct consequences for Japanese Americans. WWII marked a major realignment in American racial relations, especially when it came to East Asians. While the situation of ethnically Chinese US citizens and residents improved because China was a wartime ally, Japanese immigrants and citizens alike were vilified. Within months of Pearl Harbor, FDR had signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the government to detain and remove anyone deemed to be a national security threat. While some German and Italian Americans were also detained, most of those incarcerated were of Japanese ancestry. The majority of those incarcerated were also natural-born US citizens who were presumed to remain loyal to Japan despite never having lived there. One of the few ways for US citizens of Japanese dissent to escape incarceration was to enlist in the military.

While FDR does not directly mention American-born Japanese citizens, his “Day of Infamy” address uses “Japan,” “Japanese forces,” “the Japanese Government,” and “the Japanese” interchangeably. This slippage erases the difference between Japanese civilians and the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces who carried out the attack, implicitly categorizing all people of Japanese descent as enemies of the United States, regardless of their status or sympathies.