California to apologize officially for historical mistreatment of Japanese Americans

A monument marks the cemetery at Manzanar National Historic Site, where thousands of Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. It calls out U.S. Army Gen. John L. DeWitt for telling California politicians shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack that “the Japanese in this country have more in their possession than our own armed forces,” in convincing them to round up Japanese Americans. “Given recent national events,” it states, “it is all the more important to learn from the mistakes of the past and to ensure that such an assault on freedom will never again happen to any community in the United States.” Muratsuchi told the Japanese American Citizens League that he pushed for the bill because he wanted “California lead by example. while our nation’s capital is hopelessly divided along party lines and President Trump is putting immigrant families and children in cages.” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said it is essential for the state to acknowledge its past failings in order to move forward. Last year, Newsom signed an executive order formally apologizing for California’s “violence, maltreatment and neglect” of Native Americans throughout its history, calling such treatment a “genocide.” And earlier this month, he announced an initiative to pardon people wrongfully convicted under anti-LGBTQ laws, saying the state needed to rectify its “abuses of the past.”