Assembly Centers

Although Executive Order 9066 authorized the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, at the time it was signed there was no place for the Japanese Americans to go. When voluntary evacuation proved impractical, the military took over full responsibility for the evacuation: on April 9, 1942, the Wartime Civilian Control Agency (WCCA) was established by the military to coordinate the evacuation to inland relocation centers. However, the relocation centers were far from ready for large influxes of people. For some, there was still contention over the location; for most, their placement in isolated undeveloped areas