Portrait of an American nurse Aiko Hamaguchi interned at Manzanar War Relocation Center. Although born in the United States and an American citizen, her Japanese heritage would ensure that she was interned for the duration of the war with Imperial Japan by the United States government. U.S President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, issued 19 February 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones,” from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and much of Oregon, Washington and Arizona. In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders. Those that possessed as little as 1/16 Japanese ancestry could be placed in internment camps. Nearly 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry would be interned during the war years by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in ten Relocation Centers. Manzanar War Relocation Center, Manzanar, Inyo County, California, U.S.A. April 1943. Image taken by Ansel Adams.