[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 26, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1387-H1388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GENERAL LEAVE

  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on the subject of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my dear friend and fellow 
Californian Congressman Mike Honda in support of H. Res. 56, 
commemorating the suffering of the Japanese-American, German-American, 
and Italian-American communities during World War II by recognizing 
February 19 as a National Day of Remembrance. It is my sincere hope and 
belief that by establishing a National Day of Remembrance, Congress 
will increase public awareness of the wholesale exclusion and 
internment of individuals and entire families in this country during 
World War II.
  Following the issuance of Presidential Executive Order No. 9066 on 
February 19, 1942, tens of thousands of Americans were evicted from 
their homes, rounded up, and sent to internment camps across the 
western United States. In San Francisco, this program began in earnest 
on April 1, 1942, when all persons of Japanese ancestry--whether they 
were American citizens or not--were notified to report for 
``relocation.'' In my own district, 7,800 people were assembled against 
their will in the San Bruno Tanforan Racetrack. Seven-thousand eight 
hundred human beings were confined there for months, living in horse 
stables. Today, we realize that such a policy was outrageous.
  But Mr. Speaker, I submit that it is not only in retrospect that the 
internment of the Japanese appears absurd and unacceptable. As early as 
1946, Harold Ickes, President Roosevelt's own Secretary of the 
Interior, characterized the mass detention of Japanese Americans as 
``mass hysteria over the Japanese''; he noted that ``we gave the fancy 
name of `relocation centers' to these dust bowls, but they were 
concentration camps.'' Mr. Speaker, the way we treated Japanese 
Americans was inexcusable. Moreover, any purported national security 
benefit derived from the government's internment policy was vastly 
outweighed by the enormous human suffering and the violation of civil 
liberties that policy caused and the hatred it sowed.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that the internment of Japanese 
Americans during World War II is one of the most ignominious and 
repugnant acts our nation has committed. Our government has taken 
cautious and gradual steps toward recognizing the insidiousness of its 
World War II internment policy, but it is not enough to apologize or to 
pay reparations for the wrongs committed by the United States 
government during that period. The internment was so evil that its 
commemoration merits more than the customary apologies and financial 
compensation. Indeed, we ought to be reminded on a regular basis of the 
dangers of fanaticism, and that is what this resolution is about.
  In addition to making amends for our country's inhumane treatment of 
Japanese Americans, Mr. Speaker, we must acknowledge the anti-
democratic policies adopted by our government against Italian Americans 
and German Americans. Though their communities were not rounded up en 
masse as the Japanese Americans were, in many cases property owned by 
Italian Americans and German Americans was expropriated, and Italian- 
and German-American citizens were unlawfully detained and questioned, 
their patriotism ignored

[[Page H1388]]

and their civil rights denied. While the Wartime Violation of Italian 
Americans Civil Liberties Act of 2000 represents an important measure 
of progress on this issue, it is my heartfelt belief that more needs to 
be done.
  And that, Mr. Speaker, is why it is my privilege to proclaim my 
support for my dear friend Mr. Honda's bill, which would make room for 
a day of mourning, reflection, and remembrance of the chain of 
egregious injustices against Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and 
German Americans that was officially begun by our government on 
February 19, 1942.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill takes a day that is already a day of mourning 
in the Japanese-American community and reconsecrates it as a day of 
American remembrance. It also acknowledges the real and acute suffering 
of the Italian- and German-American communities during the war. I urge 
my colleagues to follow their conscience and join in commemorating this 
American tragedy.

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