Los Angeles County repeals support for WW2 Japanese Internment

Standing for the pledge of alliance, Takei said, “I could see the barbed wire and the sentry tower from my school house window as I recited ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ ”
--George Takei

L.A. NOW

County supervisors rescind 1942 Japanese American internment vote
June 6, 2012 | 1:54 pm

Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to rescind their predecessors’ support of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In January 1942, the then-supervisors unanimously approved a resolution to urge President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proceed with the internment, saying it was difficult “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.”

Roosevelt issued order 9066 in February 1942, and nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were held in camps for several years. Thousands of people of German and Italian descent were also interned.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ motion only addressed the detainment of Japanese Americans since the original motion did not address German or Italian Americans.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/la-supervisors-rescind-1942-japanese-internment-resolution.html

George Takei recalls 'degrading' internment of Japanese Americans

On Wednesday, Takei, now 75, recounted the day when soldiers with shining bayonets on their rifles banged on the door of his Los Angeles home and herded his family into a waiting truck. They were taken with others of Japanese lineage to living quarters in a horse stable at the Santa Anita racetrack that reeked of manure.

“As my mother carried my baby sister and a duffel bag, I saw tears rolling down her checks,” Takei said. She "thought it was the most humiliating and degrading experience of her life."

His family was later relocated to an internment camp in Arkansas, where Takei would go to school in a tar paper barracks, line up three times a day to eat in a noisy mess hall and bathe in a group shower.

Standing for the pledge of alliance, Takei said, “I could see the barbed wire and the sentry tower from my school house window as I recited ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ ”



http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/george-takei-recalls-japanese-internment.html