🚀 go-pugleaf

jreece@sousa.intel.com (John Reece) wrote:
>We know the story.  It's virtually the only WWII episode contemporary news
>media are interested in playing up.... 

But it took almost forty years for the US government to admit that depriving
120,000 of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without
due process of law was WRONG. Many high schools still don't mention the fact
that Japanese and Japanese-Americans were put in prison camps here in are the
States.

Maybe you know the story Mr. Reece, but many Americans don't.

>And 1/3 of those interned were not US citizens, but bona fide enemy aliens.
                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Bona fide enemy aliens" says Mr. Reece. On December 9 approximately 900
Japanese and Japanese-Americans were arrested by the FBI. These individuals
were indicated as being involved in subversive activity by one or more of the
five, count them, five separate investigations carried out between July 1941
and November 1941. Agencies conducting these investigations included the War
Dept., the State Dept., the FBI., and the Treasury. For these 900 people there
was at least some evidence that they were involved in some kind of subversion.
[the source for this information is the Los Angeles Times, Dec 1940 - Dec 1942]

Many, if not most, of the approximately 40,000 people which Mr. Reece calls
"bona fide enemy aliens" were people who had lived in California for twenty
years or more. Many of these people considered the United States their home
country. These men and women were not allowed to become US citizens because of
the extremely racist immigration policies of the US government. These
individuals repeatedly fell victim to the US government's racist bent.
First they were not allowed to become citizens. Then, because they were not
citizens, they were not allowed to loan the land they worked on, relegating
them permenantly to the life of a tenent farmer. Yet many of these men and
women will still tell you that America was then and is now the greatest country
on earth. Hardly what I would call "bona fide enemy aliens."

Mr. Reece your father's military service to his country during a time of war is
honorable and should be remembered. And to that end throughout this country
there are memorials to the WWII veterns. Those interned during World War II
suffered an incredible injustice. They also deserved to be remembered. One does
not preclude the other.

smittie
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GEnie, MCI, AOL:Smittie   All of these accounts except MCI will die on or
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