Today is the anniversary of the day in 1942, during World War II, that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 enabling military authorities to designate military areas from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” That order also permitted the secretary of war to provide transportation, food, and shelter “to accomplish the purpose of this order.”
Both parents, now deceased, of one of my girlfriends spent the war at Manzanar. This is not some long-ago historic event. And don’t think for a minute that Americans would be safe from Trump’s predatory actions—no one would be safe.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Thank you, Professor! I was an "alien" when I came to the US from England in 1964 and I always thought that was an extraordinary term and rather derogatory. It made me feel as if I was from another planet, or somewhere in between! I thought I had come to a fine, noble country but now I am wondering...
When I became a citizen, we were herded like cattle and I ended up in tears until a dear little lady from the DAR congratulated me on the courthouse steps and gave me a booklet of the Constitution and a little flag. I will never forget her kindness and I'm still here, fighting for democracy.
Stephen Miller has a race and people problem…big time! It is he who has read Mein Kampf probably 10 times, not his boss. He is an embarrassment to us Jews, especially those of us whose parents went through the Holocaust. Miller has a sick infatuation with “camps”, internment or concentration. He is reminiscent of Hitler’s henchman, Adolf Eichmann. Even looks like him.
Thank you, Professor. Gosh darn it I am ashamed again. And you know what growing up we were taught about this. We were taught about the abuse of the Indians of the Asians of the Hispanics of the Irish, of the Italians of the polls of all eastern Block peoples that came to America for freedom. We open our arms yet we discriminate. I don’t like the way I feel, but we must not let this man get near the White House. The American people can make a change, and all of us combine from every walk of life or true Americans, and I know that we will stand side-by-side against the extremes I know I will, and with your words, I will take them and share them with others. You are a true patriot a night will walk along with you, besides you, behind you. But never in front of you this may sound like bravado, but I am being honest. Take care all. Stay compassionate stay kind, Schere, but be strong in your convictions. Again, thank you professor for everything.
I have been using both the English and the Japanese editions of George Takei's book on those camps.
Most Americans know George Takei as Sulu, commanding the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. But earlier in his life, at four years old, he, his younger brother and sister, and both parents were among the first forced into those internment camps.
So much has changed, in America, and Japan -- even in the life of Hollywood actor Takei, who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., and many good others to bring about those changes. Takei wrote his book of manga about the camps, "They Called Us Enemy," which my Japanese students here find invaluable -- even if of such a distant era.
But is it so distant? MAGA idiots still plan more internment camps -- on a scale so millions may enjoy even larger, more punitive, prejudiced, vitriolic mass hatred. The Claremont Institute's Project 2025 has the blueprints for this all ready to go.
And the MAGA leader -- Vlad Putin -- is now killing fellow Russians like Alexei Navalny -- while MAGA in Congress do all they can to help Vlad kill Ukrainians on massive scale, and kill democracy, too -- for one fat, orange, waddling, diapered bigot, Supreme Court bribed theocrats, one Howdy Doody Speaker of the House, and congressional white trash illiterates all to enjoy democracy killed.
It's good to repeat this shameful chapter of American history and that Trump would bring back such discriminatory practices with gleeful support from the MAGA crowd. It will help mobilize supporters of democracy to turn out for the November 2024 presidential election.
General DeWitt said at the time that the fact that there had been no acts of sabotage by the Japanese in the U.S. was proof that they would surely commit them.
Hawaii (a territory back then) had a population that was roughly 1/3 Japanese. The FBI had already been busy collecting information on them. Although the Japanese were generally not incarcerated as they were on the West Coast, my grandfather was picked by the FBI and interned on the mainland because he was considered a prominent member of the community. My dad was an officer in the U.S. Army and traveled by bus to see his father. The guards brought his ailing father out and saluted him since he was an officer. On the bus back to camp, his fellow officer had tears in his eyes. I think Dad had tears, too.
In 1988, President Reagan issued an official apology and gave $20,000 to all former detainees WHO WERE STILL LIVING. By then, many had died and had long since lost the businesses and farms that they had labored so hard to build.
Stephen Miller. Jared Kushner. Benyamin Netanyahu. Et al
As an American Jew and Zionist born in the shadow of the Holocaust, I've spent my life rejecting false equivalencies. American racism, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Apartheid. To understand each instance of human wreckage, their differences are more significant than their similarities. But with the criminal Netanyahu regime the similarities to Nazism are too overwhelming to set aside. Jewish extremists want a Palestine free of Palestinians, to have lebensraum for Jewish settlers. Going through the Hell of the Holocaust taught some people the wrong lesson. This does not represent all Israelis anymore than MAGA represents all Americans.
Some will claim that this was always the goal of Zionism, but they are wrong. And largely ignorant of the historic tensions within Zionism, the current tensions in Israel, and the continuing struggle of the Zionist and Israeli Left. This is what Zionism looks like in the hands of Jewish and Evangelical religious extremists. Who are also supporting/advising arriviste tyrant wannabe Trump. And unless we use our votes to reelect Biden, it will happen here.
In 1946, 13 year old Ruth Bader (Ginsburg) wrote in her synagogue newsletter "We must never forget the horrors which our brethren were subjected to in Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps. Then, too, we must try hard to understand that for righteous people hate and prejudice are neither good occupations nor fit companions."
It is the same synagogue I grew up in, and with the same rabbi. We would not recognize the Judaism of Miller, Kushner, Netanyahu et al, anymore than Muslims would recognize the Islam of the Taliban or Isis, or Hindus would recognize the Hinduism of Mohdi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
I have no doubt that Trump plans to have concentration camps for anyone he or his minions consider to be un-American--which would be pretty much anyone who opposes him.
For all that this history is shameful, I am better for knowing about it. Much of your history lessons to us are completely -or for the most part - new to me. We have a huge fight ahead of us to resoundingly reject MAGA. You give us the knowledge we need to press our case forward. Thank you, again.
Lovely post by Heather tonight, and if I may so so, I appreciate her picking up on my comments from yesterday about Executive Order 9066, whether intentionally or otherwise.
In reading her piece tonight, I was struck by the irony of President Ford's 1976 proclamation. In the Presidential election later that year, his running mate was Senator Bob Dole, well known for suffering and surviving serious wounds from his service during WWII in Italy. One of his close friends in the US Senate, sitting across the aisle from him for many years, was Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who lost his right arm in WWII combat in Italy as well. Dole and Inouye had become friends years earlier in the military hospital after being shipped back to the States.
While the Army initially refused to allow him to join in the wake of Pearl Harbor, solely because he was of Japanese ancestry, Inouye persevered and ultimately joined the very same 442nd Regiment. It was while serving with them, that he lost his right arm in gruesome combat serving a Country that he loved, while many of his fellow Japanese Americans were interned back home.
This is a quality of nobility that is simply peerless.
Thank you Heather, as Ex. Order 9066 is not to be forgotten. My Mother-in-law was photographed at Heart Mt. Wyoming for Life Magazine, making Ikebana from colored tissue paper and windblown twigs. We are getting her settled in to a very good assisted living facility after living with us since Covid started. It is ironic that only yesterday, while going through her file cabinets as we were getting ready to sell her house to pay for her care, we came accross a large US government manilla envelope with all the documents and paperwork for the $20.000 reparation payment. Hardly compensation for losing the successful family buisines in downtown Los Angeles and graduating from highschool while living in a freezing, uninsulated tarpaper shack, fenced in with a high wall with machine gun towers at the corners.
Of course Texas will be the staging area. They are perfectly set up for it. They already have a governor & legislature more than willing to go along with whatever trump & his cronies want. They'll welcome troops from other Red States to help "control" all the illegals.
I wonder what all the folks that have immigrants who tend their yards or watch their children or clean their homes will do when their employees just disappear & they'll have to find someone else to do the work.
And, I guess republicans will be more than happy to hire white Americans to pick strawberries, harvest our produce, spray the insect & weed repellents to protect the crops. Or the milkers who help with milk production, the white folks that will gladly work in the slaughter houses or meat packing facilities. Maybe they'll hire some rich kids to clean hotel rooms or work in restaurants.
So, the Maga republicans look forward to America with detention camps & no immigrants. It will give all those white folks plenty of jobs! That will solve all the problems in the US won't it?
Oh, wait!!!! Most white folks won't do those jobs!
Both parents, now deceased, of one of my girlfriends spent the war at Manzanar. This is not some long-ago historic event. And don’t think for a minute that Americans would be safe from Trump’s predatory actions—no one would be safe.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Thank you, Professor! I was an "alien" when I came to the US from England in 1964 and I always thought that was an extraordinary term and rather derogatory. It made me feel as if I was from another planet, or somewhere in between! I thought I had come to a fine, noble country but now I am wondering...
When I became a citizen, we were herded like cattle and I ended up in tears until a dear little lady from the DAR congratulated me on the courthouse steps and gave me a booklet of the Constitution and a little flag. I will never forget her kindness and I'm still here, fighting for democracy.
Stephen Miller has a race and people problem…big time! It is he who has read Mein Kampf probably 10 times, not his boss. He is an embarrassment to us Jews, especially those of us whose parents went through the Holocaust. Miller has a sick infatuation with “camps”, internment or concentration. He is reminiscent of Hitler’s henchman, Adolf Eichmann. Even looks like him.
Thank you, Professor. Gosh darn it I am ashamed again. And you know what growing up we were taught about this. We were taught about the abuse of the Indians of the Asians of the Hispanics of the Irish, of the Italians of the polls of all eastern Block peoples that came to America for freedom. We open our arms yet we discriminate. I don’t like the way I feel, but we must not let this man get near the White House. The American people can make a change, and all of us combine from every walk of life or true Americans, and I know that we will stand side-by-side against the extremes I know I will, and with your words, I will take them and share them with others. You are a true patriot a night will walk along with you, besides you, behind you. But never in front of you this may sound like bravado, but I am being honest. Take care all. Stay compassionate stay kind, Schere, but be strong in your convictions. Again, thank you professor for everything.
Japanese immigrants could not get U.S. citizenship until the year I was born? And now Miller and Trump plan to take it away? VOTE.
I have been using both the English and the Japanese editions of George Takei's book on those camps.
Most Americans know George Takei as Sulu, commanding the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. But earlier in his life, at four years old, he, his younger brother and sister, and both parents were among the first forced into those internment camps.
So much has changed, in America, and Japan -- even in the life of Hollywood actor Takei, who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., and many good others to bring about those changes. Takei wrote his book of manga about the camps, "They Called Us Enemy," which my Japanese students here find invaluable -- even if of such a distant era.
But is it so distant? MAGA idiots still plan more internment camps -- on a scale so millions may enjoy even larger, more punitive, prejudiced, vitriolic mass hatred. The Claremont Institute's Project 2025 has the blueprints for this all ready to go.
And the MAGA leader -- Vlad Putin -- is now killing fellow Russians like Alexei Navalny -- while MAGA in Congress do all they can to help Vlad kill Ukrainians on massive scale, and kill democracy, too -- for one fat, orange, waddling, diapered bigot, Supreme Court bribed theocrats, one Howdy Doody Speaker of the House, and congressional white trash illiterates all to enjoy democracy killed.
It's good to repeat this shameful chapter of American history and that Trump would bring back such discriminatory practices with gleeful support from the MAGA crowd. It will help mobilize supporters of democracy to turn out for the November 2024 presidential election.
General DeWitt said at the time that the fact that there had been no acts of sabotage by the Japanese in the U.S. was proof that they would surely commit them.
Hawaii (a territory back then) had a population that was roughly 1/3 Japanese. The FBI had already been busy collecting information on them. Although the Japanese were generally not incarcerated as they were on the West Coast, my grandfather was picked by the FBI and interned on the mainland because he was considered a prominent member of the community. My dad was an officer in the U.S. Army and traveled by bus to see his father. The guards brought his ailing father out and saluted him since he was an officer. On the bus back to camp, his fellow officer had tears in his eyes. I think Dad had tears, too.
In 1988, President Reagan issued an official apology and gave $20,000 to all former detainees WHO WERE STILL LIVING. By then, many had died and had long since lost the businesses and farms that they had labored so hard to build.
History keeps repeating itself.
There are so many odious things in our past. We cannot become a better country until we take ownership and make amends.
Stephen Miller. Jared Kushner. Benyamin Netanyahu. Et al
As an American Jew and Zionist born in the shadow of the Holocaust, I've spent my life rejecting false equivalencies. American racism, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Apartheid. To understand each instance of human wreckage, their differences are more significant than their similarities. But with the criminal Netanyahu regime the similarities to Nazism are too overwhelming to set aside. Jewish extremists want a Palestine free of Palestinians, to have lebensraum for Jewish settlers. Going through the Hell of the Holocaust taught some people the wrong lesson. This does not represent all Israelis anymore than MAGA represents all Americans.
Some will claim that this was always the goal of Zionism, but they are wrong. And largely ignorant of the historic tensions within Zionism, the current tensions in Israel, and the continuing struggle of the Zionist and Israeli Left. This is what Zionism looks like in the hands of Jewish and Evangelical religious extremists. Who are also supporting/advising arriviste tyrant wannabe Trump. And unless we use our votes to reelect Biden, it will happen here.
In 1946, 13 year old Ruth Bader (Ginsburg) wrote in her synagogue newsletter "We must never forget the horrors which our brethren were subjected to in Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps. Then, too, we must try hard to understand that for righteous people hate and prejudice are neither good occupations nor fit companions."
It is the same synagogue I grew up in, and with the same rabbi. We would not recognize the Judaism of Miller, Kushner, Netanyahu et al, anymore than Muslims would recognize the Islam of the Taliban or Isis, or Hindus would recognize the Hinduism of Mohdi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
http://www.emjc.org/13-year-old-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-essay-1946-emjc-bulletin/
Every damn day it’s a new horror. How is there a single soul that will vote for him?
I have no doubt that Trump plans to have concentration camps for anyone he or his minions consider to be un-American--which would be pretty much anyone who opposes him.
For all that this history is shameful, I am better for knowing about it. Much of your history lessons to us are completely -or for the most part - new to me. We have a huge fight ahead of us to resoundingly reject MAGA. You give us the knowledge we need to press our case forward. Thank you, again.
Lovely post by Heather tonight, and if I may so so, I appreciate her picking up on my comments from yesterday about Executive Order 9066, whether intentionally or otherwise.
In reading her piece tonight, I was struck by the irony of President Ford's 1976 proclamation. In the Presidential election later that year, his running mate was Senator Bob Dole, well known for suffering and surviving serious wounds from his service during WWII in Italy. One of his close friends in the US Senate, sitting across the aisle from him for many years, was Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who lost his right arm in WWII combat in Italy as well. Dole and Inouye had become friends years earlier in the military hospital after being shipped back to the States.
While the Army initially refused to allow him to join in the wake of Pearl Harbor, solely because he was of Japanese ancestry, Inouye persevered and ultimately joined the very same 442nd Regiment. It was while serving with them, that he lost his right arm in gruesome combat serving a Country that he loved, while many of his fellow Japanese Americans were interned back home.
This is a quality of nobility that is simply peerless.
Thank you Heather, as Ex. Order 9066 is not to be forgotten. My Mother-in-law was photographed at Heart Mt. Wyoming for Life Magazine, making Ikebana from colored tissue paper and windblown twigs. We are getting her settled in to a very good assisted living facility after living with us since Covid started. It is ironic that only yesterday, while going through her file cabinets as we were getting ready to sell her house to pay for her care, we came accross a large US government manilla envelope with all the documents and paperwork for the $20.000 reparation payment. Hardly compensation for losing the successful family buisines in downtown Los Angeles and graduating from highschool while living in a freezing, uninsulated tarpaper shack, fenced in with a high wall with machine gun towers at the corners.
Of course Texas will be the staging area. They are perfectly set up for it. They already have a governor & legislature more than willing to go along with whatever trump & his cronies want. They'll welcome troops from other Red States to help "control" all the illegals.
I wonder what all the folks that have immigrants who tend their yards or watch their children or clean their homes will do when their employees just disappear & they'll have to find someone else to do the work.
And, I guess republicans will be more than happy to hire white Americans to pick strawberries, harvest our produce, spray the insect & weed repellents to protect the crops. Or the milkers who help with milk production, the white folks that will gladly work in the slaughter houses or meat packing facilities. Maybe they'll hire some rich kids to clean hotel rooms or work in restaurants.
So, the Maga republicans look forward to America with detention camps & no immigrants. It will give all those white folks plenty of jobs! That will solve all the problems in the US won't it?
Oh, wait!!!! Most white folks won't do those jobs!