Editing War Relocation Authority (section)

==Formation ==
[[File:Two Children of the Mochida Family, with Their Parents, Awaiting Evacuation Bus (3679508964).jpg|thumb|[[Hayward, California]], May 8, 1942. Two children of the Mochida family who, with their parents, are awaiting an evacuation bus. The youngster on the right holds a sandwich given to her by one of a group of women who were present from a local church. The family unit is kept intact during evacuation and at War Relocation Authority centers where evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed for the duration.<br />(Photo by [[Dorothea Lange]]).]]

After the December 1941 [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] issued [[Executive Order 9066]], authorizing military commanders to create zones from which certain persons could be excluded if they posed a threat to national security. Many people of Japanese ancestry were also suspected of espionage after the Pearl Harbor attack.  Military Areas 1 and 2 were created soon after, encompassing all of [[California]] and parts of [[Washington (state)|Washington]], [[Oregon]], and [[Arizona]], and subsequent civilian exclusion orders informed Japanese Americans residing in these zones they would be scheduled for "evacuation." The executive order also applied to [[Territory of Alaska|Alaska]] as well, bringing the entire [[West Coast of the United States|United States West Coast]] as off-limits to Japanese nationals and Americans of Japanese descent.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Thousand-mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians|author=Brian Garfield|pages=60–62|publisher=[[University of Alaska Press]]|date=February 1, 1995}}</ref>

On March 18, 1942, the WRA was formed via [[Executive Order 9102]].  It was in many ways a direct successor to the [[Works Projects Administration]] (WPA) and the efforts of both overlapped and intermingled for quite some time.  From March until November, the WPA spent more on internment than any other agency including the Army and was on the scene with removal and relocation even before Executive Order 9192.  Beginning on March 11, for example, Rex L. Nicholson, the WPA's regional director, managed the first “Reception and Induction” centers. Another WPA veteran, Clayton E. Triggs, was the administrator the Manzanar Relocation Center, a facility which, according to one insider, was “manned just about 100% by the WPA.” Drawing on his background in New Deal road construction, Triggs installed such familiar concentration camp features as guard towers and spotlights.  As the WPA wound down in late 1942 and early 1943, many of its employees moved over seamlessly to the WRA.<ref>{{cite book | last=Beito | first=David T. | title=The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance | edition=First | pages=182–183| location=Oakland | publisher=Independent Institute | year=2023 | isbn=978-1598133561}}</ref>

[[Milton S. Eisenhower]] was the WRA's original director. Eisenhower was a proponent of Roosevelt's [[New Deal]] and disapproved of the idea of mass internment.{{r|Daniels 2004|page=57 }} Early on he had tried, unsuccessfully, to limit the internment to adult men, allowing women and children to remain free, and he pushed to keep WRA policy in line with the original idea of making the camps similar to subsistence homesteads in the rural interior of the country.<ref name=Niiya>{{cite web|last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Milton%20Eisenhower/ |title=Milton Eisenhower |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=November 11, 2014}}</ref> This, along with proposals for helping Japanese Americans resettle in labor-starved farming communities outside the exclusion zone, was met with opposition from the governors of these interior states, who worried about security issues and claimed it was "politically infeasible," at a meeting in Salt Lake City in April 1942.{{r|Daniels 2004|pages= 56-57}} Shortly before the meeting Eisenhower wrote to his former boss, [[Secretary of Agriculture]] [[Claude Wickard]], and said, "when the war is over and we consider calmly this unprecedented migration of 120,000 people, we as Americans are going to regret the unavoidable injustices that we may have done".{{r|Daniels 2004|page=57 }}

Disappointed, Eisenhower was director of the WRA for only ninety days, resigning June 18, 1942. However, during his tenure with the WRA he raised wages for interned Japanese Americans, worked with the [[Japanese American Citizens League]] to establish an internee advisory council, initiated a student leave program for college-age [[Nisei]], and petitioned [[United States Congress|Congress]] to create programs for postwar rehabilitation. He also pushed Roosevelt to make a public statement in support of loyal Nisei and attempted to enlist the [[Federal Reserve Bank]] to protect the property left behind by displaced Japanese Americans, but was unable to overcome opposition to these proposals.<ref name=Niiya/>{{r|Daniels 2004|pages= 57-58}} Eisenhower was replaced by [[Dillon S. Myer]], who would run the WRA until its dissolution at the end of the war.

Japanese Americans had already been removed from their West Coast homes and placed in temporary "[[Internment of Japanese Americans#WCCA Civilian Assembly Centers|assembly centers]]" (run by a separate military body, the [[Wartime Civilian Control Administration|Wartime Civilian Control Administration [WCCA])]] over the spring of 1942; Myer's primary responsibility upon taking the position was to continue with the planning and construction of the more permanent replacements for the camps run by the WCCA.<ref name=Robinson>{{cite web|last=Robinson |first=Greg |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/War%20Relocation%20Authority/ |title=War Relocation Authority |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=November 11, 2014}}</ref>