Japanese American Internment - Our Story

children beyond which what and it goes on this whole thing is just so hard to believe that it even happens I mean you know we're supposed to be free country and everything but now when you look back at this I'm sure a lot of people look back at it and they think you know we didn't fight back are they fighting back now or is anything being done about it today yes and and several things have contributed to what's happening today most important is the Freedom of Information Act which released a lot of government documents related to our detention and movement and it gave those of us who are concerned some ammunition to prove that what the government did was done under false pretenses they and they weren't given the full information when they when important decisions were made this information was withheld from government agencies so that decisions to move us was very hastily made but thanks to the Freedom of Information Act a lot of these papers have come forward and the details of what happened and transpired in those days really came to light and to investigate the situation the Congress and the President appointed a commission to study this total episode and this commission this was in 1980 and this Commission came up with a number of recommendations to the Congress one of which was to recommend that a joint statement be issued by the two houses of the Congress and signed by the President to constitute really an an official apology from the nation for the acts of detention the acts of exclusion the acts of removal and secondly to demonstrate that and injustice was done by providing some sort of financial redress collectively to this group of people and individually to persons who were affected so then one one way is an apology an official apology then the second way distributing money financial redress to set up a trust fund for collective as well as individual financial redress yes do you think if this bill ever goes through the education system we'll be able to teach it more because when I was in school it was well part of this redress funding was to go for education and research and some of it will be directed towards providing materials to the school systems and part of it will go for individual redress yes is there total agreement on the subject of redress not absolutely and there's no total agreement amongst even the members of the house that passed this redress bill and I think it's it's rightfully so because there are those who feel that others suffered as a result of of the war forty years ago families were broken up and they got no compensation for it people were killed some were taken prisoners of war and we too were more or less prisoners of war but the big difference is that the real prison the regular prisoners of war were prisoners of the enemy forces we were prisoners of our own government and I think that's the big difference at that point today we've had the opportunity to talk to Professor men Amemiya Iowa State University in agronomy and grace Amamiya who is active in our community and church work and has given many speeches to Iowa State University education students on the Japanese in they are the parents of two children and when I talk to them I I think about that they are not bitter and yet they must look back and have some idea about some reflections on this time well we feel of course we felt very strongly about it and I do stand up on my soapbox occasionally and in closing I just like to say them yes we were incarcerated that's the word to use I think but we were charged with no crime and we were United States citizens we were not proven guilty in any court of law but just by the stroke of the pen by the then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt we were taken away from our homes and put into camps were stripped of our freedom and our civil rights as citizens and also subject to military law without martial law even being declared and this incarceration I think was an insult to our constitutional liberties as citizens of the United States to be incarcerated charged with only one crime that crime being to have been born Americans of Japanese descent with oriental features and living in the wrong area of America and to me this is that the Bill of Rights was a mockery internment in America yes it can happen incarceration in concentration camps in America yes it did happen but may it never happen again may our experience as the example of one of them most disgraceful incidents of our governments history never be repeated and may I close by saying to all of you you know to hold dearly your American citizenship and civil rights and constitutional liberties and don't ever take them for granted because this too could happen to you and/or your loved ones just as it happened to us and when the rights of one minority is written the rights of all are endangered so with this I close thank you thank you thank you all for coming this afternoon we appreciate all of the information thank you very much