So, over the last week, some stuff happened between some important Asian American personalities. And I wrote some (long) stuff about it.
That stuff is not actually the stuff I wanted to write about today. Today, I wanted to write about today’s Day of Remembrance: 73 years ago today, Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Executive Order 9066 authorized the eventual round-up and forcible incarceration of Japanese Americans — based solely on their racial similarity to citizens of a country with whom we were at war — in the nation’s largest coordinated concentration camp effort (learn more about the JACL’s 2010 resolution and campaign to target the words we use to refer to this period in our history).
Japanese Americans — American citizens by birthright — were imprisoned under grueling and inhumane conditions in repurposed racing tracks and stadiums, and later in the middle of the desert. These Japanese Americans and their foreign-born parents (who were denied the right to naturalize as Americans based also on their race) were treated with suspicion of disloyalty. Their possessions were stolen. Children grew up under gunpoint.
