[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 24 (Wednesday, March 1, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Westmoreland). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, 64 years ago, on February 19, 1942, tens of 
thousands of Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes 
and communities in one of the great suspensions of liberty in our 
Nation's history. We recall the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
signed Executive Order 9066 as a Day of Remembrance. This was the day 
the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans and legal residents 
along the West Coast were suspended and they were incarcerated during 
World War II.
  Families and communities were uprooted from the life they had known. 
This memory is actually quite bittersweet for me and my family. My 
grandparents and parents were uprooted from their communities, their 
lives, their homes, their businesses, despite the fact that they were 
American citizens. My parents actually met and married at the Poston 
Internment Camp, my birthplace. In fact, my father says that that was 
probably the only good thing that came out of that camp.
  Growing up, my parents protected me from the experience they went 
through of having the loyalty they held for this Nation being 
questioned. And as I was growing up, my parents made a concerted effort 
to teach me to believe in this country and love this country despite 
what it did to them.
  I shared this sense of patriotism with my husband. Bob, who despite 
spending his toddler years in a camp, grew up to have a staunch and 
steadfast belief in our country and our Constitution, including the 
ideals of justice and equality firmly embedded in both.
  Because of the implications of this incarceration, my grandparents, 
my parents like Bob's and so many others of this generation, did not 
speak of their experience in the internment camp. It wasn't until my 
father was much older that this time period was brought up.
  But this is an experience that we cannot allow to fade. The 
government at all levels was blinded by war, and it is imperative that 
we learn the lesson this moment in history has taught us, including 
this Nation's ability to recognize and acknowledge our mistakes.
  As we mark this tragic anniversary, I hope every American will take 
this day to affirm their commitment to our Constitution and the rights 
and protections it guarantees for all of us.

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