Japanese-Americans were classified as an enemy race, not merely alien enemies, before internment.

Evidence

(Just prior to President Roosevelt’s 1942 Executive Order 9066 to intern Japanese-Americans in detention camps, the officer in charge of the U.S. Western Defense Command, Lieutenant General John L. De Witt, successfully defended the devastating argument that the Japanese were not only “alien enemies,” but an “enemy race.”) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 394

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader argument that the enemy is constituted as a racial category, resonating with my reading on racialized othering. — connects to: Three-quarters of interned Japanese Americans were US citizens
• ADDENDUM: This is a strong example of enmity being constituted through identity markers rather than actions, parallel to how dress or sacrificial categories get politicized.