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How mass incarceration changed San Francisco's Japantown

In the early 1940s, San Francisco’s Japantown was a vibrant community home to more than 200 businesses owned by those of Japanese descent. But that all changed in 1942 after Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which designated the majority of the West Coast as a military zone and banned anyone of Japanese descent from living there.

A new data analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle documents the full impact of Executive Order 9066 on the Japantown community.

We hear from Peter Hartlaub, culture critic with the San Francisco Chronicle.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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