Day of Remembrance
Lessons of Internment and the ‘War on Terror’
For the last twenty-five years, Japanese American communities have remembered Feb. 19, the day in 1942 when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. These Day of Remembrance events are not only an important lesson in how the U.S. government can carry out national oppression (the violation of rights of a whole community based on nationality), but is also serve to remind us of the dangers of the Bush administration’s ‘war on terror.’
Right after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. government began to round up thousands of Japanese American businesspeople, professionals, ministers, artists and community leaders who were held in Department of Justice prison camps during the war. Then in March of 1942, the roundup of all Japanese Americans on the West Coast began. They were sent to ten concentration camps in remote areas.
Forty years later, pressure from the Japanese American community led to an official government commission that found that these concentration camps were a result of “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” Grassroots organizing, lobbying and court suits by the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, the Japanese American Citizens League and the National Congress for Japanese American Redress, led to redress [an official apology] and reparations [monetary compensation] to the survivors of the camps.
Part of this struggle for redress and reparations was the commemoration of the World War II concentration camps through Day of Remembrance events held around Feb. 19. After winning redress and reparations, these events have continued to remind us of injustice in the United States and as an effort to reach out to other communities who have also suffered national oppression in the U.S. Day of Remembrance has also been a time to raise the issue of Japanese Latin Americans that were rounded up by their governments and shipped to the United States during World War II, and then denied redress and reparations on the grounds that they did not enter the U.S. legally.
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, a new wave of hysteria and discrimination was unleashed against Arab Americans, American Muslims and South Asian Americans. Arrests, deportations, loss of jobs, vandalism, violence and intimidation were carried out by the government and racists against these communities. The so-called ‘war on terror’ led to the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act that stripped away many civil liberties. Many Japanese American individuals and organizations were among the first to oppose these actions which reminded them of the time after Pearl Harbor that led to concentration camps.
In the past year a new book, with the title In Defense of Internment, by right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin, argued that the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans were correct. This defense of concentration camps U.S.A. was picked up by Daniel Pipes, a well-known anti-Islamic writer and a Bush administration appointee to the U.S. Institute for Peace. Despite their denials, this defense of a past U.S. government crime is nothing but an effort to lay the grounds for future concentration camps here in the United States as part of the ‘war on terror.’
While grassroots organizing among Japanese Americans has faded following the victory of the movement for redress and reparations, efforts must be made to revive mass organizing. Our work in building alliances with Arab Americans and American Muslims must continue, with an emphasis on finding new ways that the grassroots in our different communities can work in common cause to defend civil liberties at home and oppose U.S. war abroad. The teaching of Japanese American history must return to its roots by reconnecting with community organizing. And last but not least, we must support the efforts to win full redress and reparations for Japanese Latin Americans.
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