(At left, Mr. Takaji being photographed like a convict simply because he had the wrong blood.)
From the Associated Press:
Notorious internment camps where Japanese-Americans were kept behind barbed wire during World War II will be preserved as stark reminders of how the United States turned on some of its citizens in a time of fear."Stark reminders of how the United States turned on some of its citizens in a time of fear"? Are they joking? I mean, I'm glad they're preserving the camps, America could use a stark reminder or two. But seriously, do our elected leaders think this lets them off the hook for recreating the exact kind of America that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans in the first place?
As one of its last acts, the Republican-led Congress on Tuesday sent President Bush legislation establishing a $38 million program of National Park Service grants to restore and pay for research at 10 camps where the government sent people of Japanese descent after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
And for anyone who isn't up on their history - honestly, I don't even recall learning about this in high school - here is what we did to an entire class of innocent Americans during World War II. But seriously, this could never happen again because America would never do anything like this - I mean, again. I mean, to Japanese-Americans.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was gripped by war hysteria. This was especially strong along the Pacific coast of the U.S., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses. Leaders in California, Oregon, and Washington, demanded that the residents of Japanese ancestry be removed from their homes along the coast and relocated in isolated inland areas. As a result of this pressure, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the forcible internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. More than two-thirds of those interned under the Executive Order were citizens of the United States, and none had ever shown any disloyalty. The War Relocation Authority was created to administer the assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps, and relocation of Japanese-Americans began in April 1942. Internment camps were scattered all over the interior West, in isolated desert areas of Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming, where Japanese-Americans were forced to carry on their lives under harsh conditions. Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Roosevelt in 1944, and the last of the camps was closed in March, 1946.
