This photo is part of the exhibit that will be on display to mark the 75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066. By Dorothea Lange
California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that would draw connections for students and the public between today’s political climate and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The SF Chronicle reports AB 491 will fund educational programs that link current attacks on civil rights and the incarceration camps.
It is an obvious swipe at President Trump from the Democratically controlled California legislature.
“When the Trump administration is infringing on the rights of Californians, we’re not going to be afraid to challenge that, whether that’s through legislation or, as the attorney general (Xavier Becerra) is doing, through the courts,” Kevin Liao, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County), said to the San Francisco Chronicle.
$3 million has been funded over the next three years for projects.
Japanese Americans since 9/11 have been outspoken in support of Muslim communities under attack.
Just two weeks ago, children of Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, and Fred Korematsu filed a brief in court opposing the Muslim American travel ban.
Hirabayashi, Yasui and Korematsu risked their livelihoods during World War II to oppose the incarceration orders back then, reported Rafu Shimpo.
“Rather than repeat the injustices of the past,” states the brief, the court “should heed the lessons of Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui: Blind deference to the Executive Branch … is incompatible with the protection of fundamental freedoms.”
The brief was filed before President Trump announced a new travel ban designed to get around the objections of the court, but which critics say is the same old same old.
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Re:California Schools to teach Students Connections Betwwen Incarceration of Japanese Americans and Current Threats: They should also be teaching the Chinese Exclusion Act which is much more akin to the Muslim immigration ban. In order to teach about the Chinese Exclusion Act, they would need to talk about all the other laws passed against the Chinese from 1850s on and the discrimination and violent acts (lynching, marching out, burning out) that they did to the Chinese unprovoked. That is so like today.
To learn more: http://www.ethnohtec.org See about my story theater piece Red Altar.