Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, empowering the Secretary of War to designate parts of the country as military zones and exclude people from them as he saw fit.

The result: Approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast were rounded up and relocated, forced to abandon their homes, businesses and possessions. Two-thirds were natural born American citizens.

They were “evacuated” to “relocation centers” (polite euphemisms for concentration camps), 10 of which were built across seven western states.

The most notorious camp was Manzanar, built at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

At its peak, over 10,000 people were interned in the 500-acre camp, enclosed by barbed wire, guard towers and armed military police.

Conditions at the camp were unforgiving. Daytime temperatures could reach 110 degrees, while nights could be freezing. Dust and wind were constant, and the crude barracks provided poor shelter. Within these barracks, each family was allotted a 20-by-25-foot cloth partition.

Most of the internees resolved to make the best of their situation, by attempting to create some semblance of normalcy for their indefinite detention. Some built all the facilities and trappings necessary to maintain a community of 10,000.