June 6, 2012
On Wednesday, June 6, at 10:45 a.m., MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati will join Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and a long list of speakers to address the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in correcting a historic wrong: Ridley-Thomas will introduce a motion to repeal the board’s 1942 resolution on internment.
SEE: "Supervisors to Vote on Repeal of 1942 Support for Internment” (The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles Japanese Daily News)
A month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the board voted unanimously to urge President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proceed with internment. It was difficult, the board said, “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.”
Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 and 120,000 people of Japanese descent — nearly one-third of who were from Los Angeles County — were held in camps for up to three years.
Actor George Takei, known to “Star Trek” fans around the world as Mr. Sulu, will be among those testifying in support of the motion. He will recall his own experiences as a young boy taken from his home in Los Angeles and kept first in horse stalls at the Santa Anita racetrack, then moved to the Rohwer camp in Arkansas and the Tule Lake camp in Northern California.
Also scheduled to speak are Greg Kimura, CEO of the Japanese American National Museum; Rev. Mark Nakagawa of Centenary United Methodist Church; Kathy Masaoka of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress; Bruce Embrey, co-chair of the Manzanar Committee; and Bill Watanabe, executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center.
The Board of Supervisors’ meetings, which are open to the public, are held at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple St., Los Angeles.
Meetings are also broadcast live online athttp://bos.co.la.ca.us/BoardMeeting/LiveBroadcast.aspx.
