Day of Remembrance for WWII Japanese American internment held at UA on Feb. 19, 2021

Last week Friday Feb. 19 the University of Arizona Asian Pacific American Students Affairs & Global Experiential Learning hosted a panel discussion on E.O. 9066 signed by the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which caused the massive relocation & internment of innocent Japanese Americans on US soil during WWII.  Participating in this panel was UA East Asian Studies Professor Brett Esaki, myself – former Legislative Aide to US Senator Dan Inouye and Editor of Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition – Author/poet Brandon Shimoda, and USC Religion/East Asian professor Duncan Ryuken Williams.

During the panel discussion I talked about racism against my US citizen father Francis Sueo Sugiyama in Los Angeles, and what I had to do as Senator Inouye’s Legislative Aide to push through S. 1647 which created the National Commission on Wartime Relocation & Internment of Civilians (my title). This Commission held public hearings all over the nation and issued a report “Personal Justice Denied” in 1982.  This then led to the monetary redress of $20,000 per internee still alive when the late President Ronald Reagan apologized for this WWII wrong in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

Brett’s grandparents and Brandon’s grandfather were in some of these internment camps, and Duncan (from Japan) has translated many documents for former internees.

Posted below is the flyer from our Day of Remembrance event.

If you missed this panel discussion, here’s the video:

https://arizona.zoom.us/rec/play/hENRqgwKx_ntNYTaNAlikLVqGClWTan1PZ4y8Jcur6ygBbU6reryr3BEZCVRzaRaMTyTD7f7rwFL09of._5snI8OIp80FyRyI?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=qk8mObnzR4SCb03nhDH9zQ.1614290916175.559736006f515798e3dc5f0aa0bb61d8&_x_zm_rhtaid=451&fbclid=IwAR2dL8R6Uzp6SQyDmvSbpIVbICAdBUGXQFNmB3gHLWDLCNJKLzwsiCdQHy4

 

The Commission’s report stated on page 18 that “The promulgation of E.O. 9066 was not justified by military necessity”… and “The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”  The question was of course raised during the discussion as to whether this type of mass evacuation and internment, targeted to an ethnic group, could occur again in America. Just remember that E.O. 9066 was “neutral on its face” as a military exclusion order, but was only applied to the Japanese Americans, not to German or Italian Americans during WWII. And no criminal trials were ever held, and no one was convicted prior to the mass internment of these civilians, 2/3 of whom were US citizens, 1/4 were children.

2 thoughts on “Day of Remembrance for WWII Japanese American internment held at UA on Feb. 19, 2021”

  1. Day of Remembrance for WWII Japanese American internment. 14,000 Japanese American served proudly in the service to their country. Their unit, the 442 Infantry regiment of the 92nd Infantry Division, was awarded 9,486 Purple Hearts 4,000 Bronze Stars, 560 Silver Star Medals, and had an unbelievable 21 Medal of Honor recipients. Their unit was the most decorated for its size during WW2.

    • Thanks very much for your comment Clyde, remembering the 442nd. My cousin Dan Inouye (as you know) lost his right arm during WWII while a Lt. in the 442nd, company E. And my uncle Kenneth Masao Koseki served as a medic in the 442nd. Many of them had parents and other family members imprisoned in the camps. So many did not return home after WWII due to the high # of casualties.

Comments are closed.