Recognizing the Significance of the 65th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066 and Supporting and Recognizing a National Day of Remembrance
RECOGNIZING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY OF EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066 AND SUPPORTING AND RECOGNIZING A NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
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Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from California (Mr. Berman) for yielding me time; and I would like to thank my good friend from California (Mr. Honda) for his leadership on this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us today is a reminder that from great injustice can come great awakening.
We take up this resolution to mark the 65th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. The resolution is a reminder that each of us has a responsibility to ensure that something like Executive Order 9066 never happens again.
In a time of war, thousands of innocent American citizens were rounded up, forcibly removed from their homes, and shipped to internment camps. Sadly, this was an avoidable consequence of racial prejudice and wartime hysteria. The government at all levels was blinded by war. It is imperative that we learn the lesson this moment in history has taught us. That is why I applauded the creation of a grant program to preserve the internment camps and related historical sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. We must preserve these camps as a physical, tangible representation of our government's failure to protect the constitutional right of every American, and also as a symbol of our Nation's ability to acknowledge our mistakes. Further, these designations will ensure that future generations will be able to visit the internment camps to gain a better understanding of the previous generation's experience.
Mr. Speaker, we may have won World War II; however, we were not victorious because of our treatment of Japanese, Italian, and German Americans, but in spite of it.
Now, 65 years later, we are once again engaged in armed conflict overseas, and once again the undertones of suspicion and mistrust toward particular groups of people lurk beneath the surface of our society, which is why it is more important than ever to recall our past, so we do not repeat our mistakes.
I hope every American will take this day to reaffirm their commitment to our Constitution and the rights and protections it guarantees to all of us. The resolution before us today recognizes the past injustices and points the way toward a future where such wrongs are no longer perpetuated in this country. Each Member of this Congress as a servant of the people is duty bound to apply these lessons of the past to the challenges we now face. In doing so, we show our continued efforts toward ensuring that our country avoids similarly misguided policies now and in the future.
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