WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19: JAPANESE INTERNMENT

Profile America — Tuesday, February 19th.  On this date in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring Japanese Americans living along the Pacific Coast to be relocated inland.  This order, affected some 77,000 citizens and 43,000 resident aliens.  The internment lasted throughout the war, and the camps closed by early 1946.  The dislocation caused by the internment order singling out an ancestry group came to be widely regretted, and led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, formally apologizing for the action and offering financial restitution.  Today in the U.S., there are an estimated 775,000 residents of Japanese ancestry.  Profile America is in its 16th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sources:  U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, Asian Alone by Selected Groups

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau