For Japanese Americans, Trump’s Alien Enemies Act is personal

Born in an incarceration camp, Satsuki Ina, 80, heard first-hand stories from her parents of being imprisoned for being Japanese American.

Her mom and dad talked of first being ordered to live at the Tanforan Racetrack near San Francisco.

She pictures her mother, Shizuko, pressing her nose against the fence. As Ina recalls, her mom watched to “see life go on for everybody else.”

That was life under the Alien Enemies Act- the 1798 law to detain or deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation during times of war. It’s the law used to justify the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Now President Trump has resurrected the law to deport Venezuelans he alleges are members of the gang, Tren de Aragua. He’s deported 200 Venezuelans Saturday who he says have declared war against the U.S. by invading its borders.

“We’re not going to forget this abuse of power,” said Dean Ito-Taylor of Nihonmachi Legal Outreach. “We cannot support or ignore a federal government that promotes racism. We will not forget what happened to our communities. and our families.”

About one dozen groups gathered at the Japanese American Citizens League in San Francisco to denounce the law. The mostly Japanese and Asian American groups don’t want it used to put anyone else behind barbed wire.

“I speak for Japanese Americans in San Francisco. We are ourselves descendants of immigrants and we know that immigrants are not our enemies. They are our friends. We’re proud to stand in solidarity with the Venezuelans,” said Jeff Matsuoka of Bay Area Day of Remembrance.

Jon Osaki, director of the JCYC, put it this way.

“There are moments in this country that silence is not an option. We need to speak up loudly.”

The JACL called for voters to contact their congressional representative in support of the Neighbors Not Enemies Act which would repeal the Alien Enemies Act.

“Congress needs to ensure that the president does not abuse and further desecrate our constitution,” said Joyce Nakamura of JACL.

The 200 Venezuelans deported have been sent to a prison in El Salvador despite a judge’s order Saturday night ordering the flights to return. That judge has ordered the Trump administration to justify its actions.

For those at the news conference, the parallels to what happen to Japanese Americans during WWII is obvious.

“When 120,000 Japanese Am were incarcerated by the federal government and no due process, there were many witnesses to these blatant violation of constitutional rights who were silent and thereby complicit,” said San Francisco Public Defender Manu Raj. “Today as witnesses to these gross human right violations, we will not be complicit. We’re here today to condemn, vigorously oppose and to call out the federal government’s illegal actions and we will not relent until all those rights are restored.”

Annie Lee of Chinese for Affirmative Action and Stop AAPI Hate says none of us are safe from similar actions.

“They are coming after all of us. And do not let them divide you. If you think you are safe because you are a citizen or you speak English, you are sorely mistaken. They are coming after every single one of us,” she said.

“This politics, this rhetoric emboldens people. It emboldens people to be racist openly and when someone screams at me to go back to my country, they honestly do not care if I was born here, If I’m a citizen if I’m naturalized if I have H1B visa.”

Yet despite the adversity, these Asian American groups see hope. They stress that people genuinely like their neighbors and don’t care if they are immigrants or not. They called on the community to tell the stories of their immigrant brothers and sisters and change hearts one at a time.

Ina of Tsuru for Solidarity was born at the Tule Lake Segregation Center during World War II. Her then pregnant mother kept a quilted blanket she received from a Quaker who told her mother she hoped the blanket would give her comfort.

Her mother kept that blanket for her entire life. For her that blanket represented hope.

“What she said was this blanket helped me to remember that someone outside cared. That’s what we’re doing today. We are showing up and speaking up.”