California to apologise for WWII internment of Japanese Americans, a racist stain on its history
- More than 120,000 Japanese Americans held at 10 internment camps during World War II
- California’s Legislature to offer apology for state’s role in aiding US government’s policy
For decades, Japanese American activists have marked February 19 as a day to reflect on one of the darkest chapters in United States history.
On that date in 1942, during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorised the forced removal of over 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent from their homes and businesses.
On Thursday, the California Assembly will do more than just remember.
It's expected to approve, with Governor Gavin Newsom's endorsement, a formal apology to all Americans of Japanese descent for the state's role in policies that culminated with their mass incarceration.
HR 77, introduced by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi and co-authored with six others, spells out in excruciating detail California's anti-Japanese heritage.
It mentions the California Alien Land Law of 1913 (which made land ownership for Japanese immigrants illegal) and a 1943 joint resolution by the Assembly and state Senate that called for the forfeiture of US citizenship by residents who also were citizens of Japan.
