An Open Letter to the Mayor of Roanoke, Virginia

This sort of thing - a favorable invocation of Japanese American internment to support current policy - makes my heart so very heavy.

Let me break this down for you, Mr. Mayor of Roanoke.

There were two kinds of "sequestration" (the Mayor's word) of "Japanese nationals" (the Mayor's words) after Pearl Harbor.

(1) Relatively small numbers of Japanese resident alien men were arrested as "enemy aliens" by the FBI after Pearl Harbor and detained in Justice Department internment camps. These arrests had the veneer of legality in that they were based on some piece of evidence that signaled danger in the eyes of the government and were effected pursuant to statutory authority stretching back to the 18th century. BUT: the "evidence" of danger included such nefarious things as teaching judo, heading a Japanese business association, or being the bookkeeper for a Japanese after-school program. Mr. Mayor, I don't think you want to hang your hat on these arrests, given that their purported foundation did nothing more than reflect the irrational and xenophobic fear that gripped the nation at the time. Oh, and US Attorney General Francis Biddle repudiated the entire arrest program in 1943.

(2) In a separate program, large numbers of Japanese resident aliens (some 40,000) were evicted from their homes and locked up in prison camps en masse, without any evidence of dangerousness at all. The only criterion was that they were Japanese. That lockup lasted for several years. Mr. Mayor, I don't think you want to hang your hat on these detentions either, given that Congress determined in the early 1980s that they were based on racism and hysteria rather than valid security concerns. The government issued survivors a token redress payment of $20,000 per person. So ... probably not the sort of precedent you want to invoke.

(3) I don't want to omit the possibility that by lining yourself up behind the "sequestration" of "Japanese nationals," you are referring to the mass detention not of Japanese resident aliens but of some 75,000 US CITIZENS of Japanese ancestry without evidence from '42 to '45.

If that's the precedent you're invoking, well, you're just being a complete idiot.

 

 

Comments

[anon]

Muller is right. Bowers is clearly a buffoon. America has turned into a weak country because politicians are afraid to make difficult decisions without apologizing to unworthy recipients.

There is a distinct difference between (1) the industrial-scale detention of tens-of-thousands of citizens for having a different shape of eyes but were otherwise upstanding citizens, and (2) denying importation of people whose lives have been lived in a relative war zone who follow demonstrably uncivil religion and will be delivered into a population wholly different from their own.

This apology trivialises the suffering of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. If I were Japanese I would be unspeakably offended with this idiot’s politically correct garbage. Mayor Bowers should be ashamed of himself. Unfortunately, someone unable to comprehend such wholly different situations is likely to stupid to understand any of this reasoning.

[anon]

Let's pause and reflect on the actions of FDR, Truman, and JFK with respect to race and war. Certain self righteous partisans today would do well to show a bit more humility about their party, as that party effected its "core principles" under stress.

No doubt, there is no valid comparison of the refugee issue today and the internment under FDR's administration.

[Jack Chin]

Thanks, Eric, for this important observation. I think another analogy is the exclusion of Jewish refugees before the U.S. entry into the war on many grounds including for some that, as Germans, they might be security risks. Blaming Syrian refugees for the conduct of European nationals is also unlikely to wind up a proud moment in U.S. history.

[Steven Freedman]

The opposition to admitting Syrian refugees is based on a false premise, that ISIS would attempt to infiltrate the U.S. via the refugee system. You'd be laughed out of terrorist school if you proposed that as a mechanism for launching attacks in the U.S. The refugee path is the most intrusive and lengthy method for entry to the U.S., making it the most likely path to have your plot discovered. You'd be better off trying to swim to America with an AK-47 strapped to your back.

That is one reason why among the 750,000 refugees admitted to the U.S. since 9/11, not a single one of these refugees has committed an act of domestic terrorism.

If your goal is to prevent terrorism, then you should support the refugee program. The alternative to a refugee program is to keep people in refugee camps. They will be underfunded, depressing and demoralizing. They will be easily infiltrated by terrorist groups. In other words, it will be a breeding ground for terrorists.

So not only is admitting people fleeing ISIS and Assad the moral thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.

[Anon]

If you all are really so worried about helping people in bondage, you should be advocating for making student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy.

[Steven Freedman]

@ anon. Done deal. I think student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy and I'd like our country to defeat ISIS and live up to ideals.