California Lawmakers Expected To Apologize For US Internment Of Japanese Americans

[appalachiablue]

Source: NPR

It has been just over 78 years since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans.

Now the California Assembly is expected to apologize for the role the state played in rounding up about 120,000 people – mainly U.S. citizens – and moving them into 10 camps, including two in California.

The resolution notes a number of federal and state laws passed beginning in 1913 that discriminated against people of Japanese descent, before apologizing "to all Americans of Japanese ancestry for its past actions in support of the unjust exclusion, removal, and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and for its failure to support and defend the civil rights and civil liberties of Japanese Americans during this period."

It also states: "Given recent national events, it is all the more important to learn from the mistakes of the past and to ensure that such an assault on freedom will never again happen to any community in the United States."...


Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/20/807428171/california-lawmakers-expected-to-apologize-for-u-s-internment-of-japanese-americ

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Al Muratsuchi, the Assembly member who introduced the resolution says it's important to note the "striking parallels between what happened to Japanese-Americans before and during World War II and what we see happening today."

"Unfortunately, during the years leading up to World War II, California was at the forefront and led the nation in so many ways in fanning the flames of racism and immigrant scapegoating against Japanese Americans," he explained.

The resolution that is expected to pass Thursday is part of a series of apologies the state has issued recently for its historical injustices against minority groups.



- At the California Museum in Sacramento, Les Ouchida holds a 1943 photo of himself (front row ctr) and his siblings taken at the internment camp in Jerome, Ark., that his family was moved to from their home near Sacramento in 1942.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. It was a despicable time and a flawed decision

Understand though, that Japan had destroyed our fleet and air force at Pearl Harbor, and attacked several other countries (Philippines, Singapore) that hosted American, British, or Dutch military forces that became the Allies. And the Japanese had torpedoed targets around Santa Barbara, California creating an invasion scare that might cause resident populations to rise up against America. Tensions were so high as to trigger the Battle of Los Angeles in the winter of 1942.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Ellwood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

So in the context of the times the internment made more sense than it does in retrospect.

[murielm99]

2. Thanks.

I had never heard of the Battle of Los Angeles.

[ripcord]

3. It was not understandable it was simply racist

These are not images of Nazi Germany but of the German American Bund a pro Nazi group supporting Adolph Hitler and Nazism at a rally in Madison Square Gardens in NYC before WW2. A large number of German Americans belonged to this group but when the war started only the leaders were confined the rest, even though there was more evidence against them that any of the Japanese Americans, were allowed a pass. It was only the Japanese Americans in California who were tossed into concentration camps for no reason, had their homes, businesses and personal possessions stolen not any place else in the United States, not even Hawaii which had been hard hit in the first of the attacks by the Japanese. Earl Warren and FDR singled these people out because of the color of their skin and their memories will always carry that stain.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Prior to declaring war on the US

Germany did not attack any US state, the mainland, or territory. They just declared war. During the war there were several sabotage incidents from German spies dispatched to US soil.

I do agree with what you say, but it must also be said racism was not the only reason for their deplorable actions. We were at war, we had been attacked, on the mainland. They didn't for example, inter black, native Americans, or to my knowledge, Chinese, perhaps because the government of Chiang Kai-shek was our ally against Japan. But yes, it was poorly conceived and handled worse. Good intel would have been sufficient if they thought to root out spies or sympathizers which they never found.

[ripcord]

5. What is a hell of a lot more than the Japanese Americans did

If there was such concern for Japanese Americans supporting Japan why didn't they start in Hawaii where there had been a major attack? Why only Japanese Americans, we were at war with the Axis but we didn't round up German or Italian Americans? It is never understandable to round up U.S. citizens without any proof or trial and put them in concentration camps.