[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 69 (Wednesday, April 27, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E413-E414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





  COMMISSION TO STUDY THE POTENTIAL CREATION OF A NATIONAL MUSEUM OF 
             ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 26, 2022

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3525, 
the ``Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum 
of Asian Pacific American History and Culture Act.''
  This bill seeks to create the first national museum dedicated to 
preserving the history, culture, and accomplishments of Asian Pacific 
Americans (APA).
  As the representative for the 18th District of Texas, which has a 
significant Asian population, this bill is of great personal importance 
to me.
  Asian Americans are significant contributors of our nation's history 
as champions of social and racial justice. Yet, Asian Americans have 
also uniquely suffered in the United States, and those stories should 
also be told.
  The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first and only major 
federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific 
nationality. The basic exclusion law prohibited Chinese laborers--
defined as ``both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed 
in mining''--from entering the country.
  Subsequent amendments to the law prevented Chinese laborers who had 
left the United States from returning. The passage of the act 
represented the outcome of years of racial hostility and anti-immigrant 
agitation by white Americans, set the precedent for later restrictions 
against immigration of other nationalities, and started a new era in 
which the United States changed from a country that welcomed almost all 
immigrants to a gatekeeping one.
  Another glaring example of their suffering are the internment camps 
of World War II.
  Prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation (FBI) had identified German, Italian, and Japanese aliens 
who were suspected of being potential enemy agents; and they were kept 
under surveillance. Following the attack at Pearl Harbor, government 
suspicion arose not only around aliens who came from enemy nations, but 
around all persons of Japanese descent, whether foreign born (issei) or 
American citizens (nisei). During congressional committee hearings, 
representatives of the Department of Justice raised logistical, 
constitutional, and ethical objections. Regardless, the task was turned 
over to the U.S. Army as a security matter.
  The entire West Coast was deemed a military area and was divided into 
military zones. Executive Order 9066 authorized military commanders to 
exclude civilians from military areas. Although the language of the 
order did not specify any ethnic group, Lieutenant General John L. 
DeWitt of the Western Defense Command proceeded to announce curfews 
that included only Japanese Americans. Next, he encouraged voluntary 
evacuation by Japanese Americans from a limited number of areas; about 
seven percent of the total Japanese American population in these areas 
complied.
  On March 29, 1942, under the authority of the executive order, DeWitt 
issued Public Proclamation No. 4, which began the forced evacuation and 
detention of Japanese-American West Coast residents on a 48-hour 
notice. Only a few days prior to the proclamation, on March 21, 
Congress had passed Public Law 503, which made violation of Executive 
Order 9066 a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a 
$5,000 fine.
  Because of the perception of ``public danger,'' all Japanese 
Americans within varied distances from the Pacific coast were targeted. 
Unless they were able to dispose of or make arrangements for care of 
their property within a few days, their homes, farms, businesses, and 
most of their private belongings were lost forever.
  From the end of March to August, approximately 112,000 persons were 
sent to ``assembly centers''--often racetracks or fairgrounds--where 
they waited and were tagged to indicate the location of a long-term 
``relocation center'' that would be their home for the rest of the war. 
Nearly 70,000 of the evacuees were American citizens. There were no 
charges of disloyalty against any of these citizens, nor was there any 
vehicle by which they could appeal their loss of property and personal 
liberty.
  ``Relocation centers'' were situated many miles inland, often in 
remote and desolate locales. Sites included Tule Lake, California; 
Minidoka, Idaho; Manzanar, California; Topaz, Utah; Jerome, Arkansas; 
Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Poston, Arizona; Granada, Colorado; and 
Rohwer, Arkansas. (Incarceration rates were significantly lower in the 
territory of Hawaii, where Japanese Americans made up over one-third of 
the population and their labor was needed to sustain the economy. 
However, martial law had been declared in Hawaii immediately following 
the Pearl Harbor attack, and the Army issued hundreds of military 
orders, some applicable only to persons of Japanese ancestry.)
  In the ``relocation centers'' (also called ``internment camps''), 
four or five families, with their sparse collections of clothing and 
possessions, shared tar-papered army-style barracks. Most lived in 
these conditions for nearly three years or more until the end of the 
war. Gradually some insulation was added to the barracks 
and lightweight partitions were added to make them a little more 
comfortable and somewhat private. Life took on some familiar routines 
of socializing and school. However, eating in common facilities, using 
shared restrooms, and having limited opportunities for work interrupted 
other social and cultural patterns. Persons who resisted were sent to a 
special camp at Tule Lake, California, where dissidents were housed.

  In 1943 and 1944, the government assembled a combat unit of Japanese 
Americans for the European theater. It became the 442d Regimental 
Combat Team and gained fame as the most highly decorated of World War 
II. Their military record bespoke their patriotism.
  As the war drew to a close, ``internment camps'' were slowly 
evacuated. While some persons of Japanese ancestry returned to their 
hometowns, others sought new surroundings. For example, the Japanese-
American community of Tacoma, Washington, had been sent to three 
different centers; only 30 percent returned to Tacoma after the war. 
Japanese Americans from Fresno had gone to Manzanar; 80 percent 
returned to their hometown.
  The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II sparked 
constitutional and political debate. During this period, three 
Japanese-American citizens challenged the constitutionality of the 
forced relocation and curfew orders through legal actions: Gordon 
Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo. Hirabayashi and 
Korematsu received negative judgments; but Mitsuye Endo, after a 
lengthy battle through lesser courts, was determined to be ``loyal'' 
and allowed to leave the Topaz, Utah, facility.
  Justice Murphy of the Supreme Court expressed the following opinion 
in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo:
  I join in the opinion of the Court, but I am of the view that 
detention in Relocation Centers of persons of Japanese ancestry 
regardless of loyalty is not only unauthorized by Congress or the 
Executive but is another example of the unconstitutional resort to 
racism inherent in the entire evacuation program. As stated more fully 
in my dissenting opinion in Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 
323 U.S. 214, 65 S.Ct. 193, racial discrimination of this nature bears 
no reasonable relation to military necessity and is utterly foreign to 
the ideals and traditions of the American people.
  In 1988, Congress passed, and President Reagan signed, Public Law 
100-383--the Civil Liberties Act of 1988--that acknowledged the 
injustice of ``internment,'' apologized for it, and provided a $20,000 
cash payment to each person who was incarcerated.
  One of the most stunning ironies in this episode of denied civil 
liberties was articulated by an internee who, when told that Japanese 
Americans were put in those camps for their own protection, countered 
``If we were put there for our protection, why were the guns at the 
guard towers pointed inward, instead of outward?''
  Asian Americans and Asian immigrants also have suffered systematic 
exclusion from the political process and it has taken a series of 
reforms, including repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, and 
passage of amendments strengthening the Voting Rights Act

[[Page E414]]

three decades later, to fully extend the franchise to Asian Americans. 
It was with this history in mind that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was 
designed to make the right to vote a reality for all Americans.
  Despite this track record of suffering familiar to all minority 
groups in America, we must not forget the positive history of Asian 
Americans.
  Congresswoman Meng, the sponsor of this bill, put it best when she 
recalled how:
  ``Chinese Americans fought for the Union at the Battles of Antietam 
and Gettysburg during the American Civil War and Japanese Americans 
comprised the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II, which 
became the most decorated unit in the history of the U.S. Military.''
  ``While Chinese and Japanese Americans have demonstrated valor and 
bravery, they have also faced institutionalized disenfranchisement that 
manifested in U.S. laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Executive 
Order 9066 that ordered the internment of Japanese Americans during 
World War II. Yet, from the first wave of Southeast Asian refugees on 
our shores to the Filipino Americans who helped found the farmworker 
labor movement--AAPIs have left an indelible mark on our American 
story.''
  ``From these Halls of Congress to every American classroom, our AAPI 
heroes such as Grace Lee Boggs--a human rights activist for seven 
decades; Larry Itliong--the quintessential leader for labor rights and 
justice; Dalip Singh Saund--the first Asian American elected to 
Congress; and Patsy Mink--the first woman of color elected to Congress, 
and the original champion of Title IX protections in the Higher 
Education Act, have fought for human and civil rights and social 
justice with their every breath. Shamefully, these stories are starkly 
missing from the narrative of American history.''
  Mr. Speaker, these stories must not continue to be unknown to so many 
Americans. This bill would put an end to that shameful practice, so I 
am proud to support it and urge my colleagues to as well.

                          ____________________