Bill Text: HI SR109 | 2020 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Apologizing For The Internment Of Predominately Japanese Americans At The Honouliuli Internment Camp During World War Ii.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 11-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2020-03-10 - Referred to JDC. [SR109 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2020-SR109-Introduced.html
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THE SENATE |
S.R. NO. |
109 |
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THIRTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2020 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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SENATE RESOLUTION
apologizing for the interNment of predominately japanese americans at the honouliuli internment camp during world war ii.
WHEREAS, early on December 7, 1941, as the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor, government officials began selectively rounding up Hawaii residents suspected of disloyalty; and
WHEREAS, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 (EO9066), under which more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in ten concentration camps scattered throughout the western United States and the State of Arkansas during World War II; and
WHEREAS, EO9066 inflicted upon more than 120,000 Americans and residents of Japanese ancestry a great human cost of abandoned homes, businesses, farms, careers, professional advancements, disruption to family life, and public humiliation; and
WHEREAS, United States Army General John L. DeWitt, the head of the Western Defense Command, alleged that, while the majority of people of Japanese ancestry living in California were loyal to the United States, many were spies for the Empire of Japan, stating that "the Japanese in this country have more [arms and ammunition] in their possession than our own armed forces"; and
WHEREAS, General DeWitt informed the Governor of California and the California Legislative Assembly before President Roosevelt signed EO9066, of the plan to intern all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast; and
WHEREAS, in Hawaii, the Honouliuli Internment Camp was a civilian internment camp and a prisoner of war camp with a population of approximately four hundred internees and four thousand prisoners of war over the course of its use; and
WHEREAS, roughly eight hundred people were interned and eventually transported to the United States Immigration Station and the Sand Island Detention Camp on Oahu before the Honouliuli Internment Camp was established, and of these internees, nearly all were of Japanese descent; they included influential leaders of the Japanese American community who were educated, were teachers or priests, or had access to means of communication with Japan or to transportation from Hawaii; and
WHEREAS, while most civilians apprehended in the initial years of World War II would be sent to the mainland to live out the duration of the war in Department of Justice and War Relocation Authority camps, the opening of Honouliuli Internment Camp in March of 1943 provided an alternative to mainland transfer, as the camp was designed for the express purpose of confining internees and prisoners of war for longer periods of time; and
WHEREAS, during this period, the United States Army issued hundreds of military orders, some of which were applicable only to persons of Japanese ancestry and enemy aliens, for example, people of Japanese ancestry were restricted from residing in certain areas of Oahu and were forcibly removed from their properties; and
WHEREAS, by the end of World War II, over two thousand people of Japanese ancestry from Hawaii were interned, but despite the suspicion of disloyalty, none of the Japanese American internees from Hawaii were ever found to be guilty of sabotage, espionage, or overt acts against the United States; and
WHEREAS, nearly forty years after the United States Supreme Court decisions upholding the convictions of Fred Korematsu, Min Yasui, and Gordon Hirabayashi for violations of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 (in the case of Korematsu), and curfew (in the cases of Yasui and Hirabayashi), all authorized pursuant to EO9066, it was discovered that officials from the United States Department of War and the United States Department of Justice had altered, destroyed, and withheld information that evidenced the loyalty of the people of Japanese ancestry from the United States Supreme Court in those cases; and
WHEREAS, on May 24, 2011, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said World War II Solicitor General Charles Fahy, who represented the United States Department of Justice in the Korematsu, Yasui, and Hirabayashi cases, "acted dishonorably" by withholding relevant information; and
WHEREAS, many attorneys and interns contributed innumerable hours to win a reversal of the original convictions of Korematsu, Yasui, and Hirabayashi in 1983 by filing a petition for writ of error coram nobis on the grounds that fundamental errors and injustice occurred; and
WHEREAS, in 1980, the United States Congress created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to examine the actions and impact of EO9066. The Commission held twenty days of public hearings, conducted eighteen months of thorough investigation, and published its findings in 1983, which concluded that EO9066 was not justified by "military necessity" but was due to "racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership"; and
WHEREAS, on August 10, 1988, President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed into law the federal Civil Liberties Act of 1988, finding that EO9066 was not justified by military necessity and, instead, was caused by "racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership"; and
WHEREAS, the federal Civil Liberties Act of 1988 apologized on behalf of the people of the United States for the forced exclusion, mass removal, and incarceration of Americans and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry during World War II, and the act also provided for restitution to those individuals of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated; and
WHEREAS, given recent national events, 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; and
WHEREAS, the year 2020 marks the 76th anniversary of the Supreme Court of the United States' decisions in the Japanese American incarceration cases, and while the Supreme Court ordered Mitsuye Endo released from incarceration, it denied, in Korematsu v. United States, that EO9066 reflected racial prejudice and upheld EO9066 in light of the "strategic imperative" to keep the west coast secure from invasion; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirtieth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2020, that the Legislature apologizes to all Americans of Japanese ancestry for its past actions in support of the unjust exclusion, removal, and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and for its failure to support and defend the civil rights and civil liberties of Japanese Americans during this period; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a certified copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor of the State of Hawaii.
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OFFERED BY: |
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Apology; Japanese Americans; World War II; Internment
