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Hearing Draws Parallel Between World War II and Post-September 11 Experiences

civilrights.org
Posted on Thursday May 22, 2003

At a hearing entitled “Past and Present: Safeguarding American Civil Liberties,” a diverse panel of community leaders examined the similarities between the Japanese-, German-, and Italian-American experiences during World War II and the Arab-, Southeast Asian-, Pakistani-, and Sikh-American experiences in the aftermath of September 11th.

Representative Mike M. Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the meeting, began the discussion by pointing out how after the Pearl Harbor attacks the U.S. violated the civil liberties of American citizens and resident aliens of “enemy” ethnic groups—primarily those of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry in the name of national security.

*On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing approximately 120,000 Japanese American and legal resident aliens to be incarcerated in internment camps.

*At least 11,000 German aliens and their families, including U.S. – born children, were placed in internment camps and at least 2,000 German Americans were exchanged against their will for Americans held in Germany.

*More than 600,000 Italian Americans were labeled as “internal enemies” by the U.S. government, restricting them from traveling and requiring them to adhere to curfew laws.

At the hearing, former Japanese-, German-, and Italian-American internees recounted the ways in which the federal government had violated the civil rights of the very people it should have been protecting.

Representative Honda then turned the discussion over to a panel of leaders representing Arab-, Southeast Asian-, Pakistani-, and Sikh-Americans whose communities had also been disrupted by the government’s efforts to curb terrorism, namely through its enactment of the USA Patriot Act, legislation that allows law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain suspects for indefinite periods of time (without protection of due process); conduct secret searches; and conduct wiretaps without probable cause.

Dr. James J. Zogby, CEO and President of the Arab American Institute, addressed the importance of not allowing law enforcement agencies to victimize segments of the nation’s population of particular racial or ethnic backgrounds.

“We must continue to make clear our absolute abhorrence of terrorism. We must, at the same time, fight to defend our constitutionally-protected rights against the continuing dangers of backlash that can occur when we raise our voice to object to bad policies that threaten to weaken our country.”