(SACRAMENTO) - Today on the floor of the State Assembly, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva (D Orange County) coauthored Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR 1) that proclaims February 19, 2017, as the 75th Anniversary of the issuance of Executive Order 9066, and recognizing a Day of Remembrance in California.
“On February 19th, 1942, 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in internment camps. We know of their stories. We have heard of their resiliency, but many times we don’t know where they were relocated. In my district, we have over 257 names of people; community members, grandmothers, grandfathers, friends and neighbors that were relocated.”
Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva continued to read off some of the names and identification numbers of those were incarcerated in Japanese internment camps from Orange County.
“As we think about the kind of rhetoric we hear today, throughout the nation, I think it is time for us to take a pause and look at each other neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, and realize that we are a country that believes in an individual’s rights. We are a country that believes in standing up for others.”
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. Army the authority to remove civilians from the military zones established in Washington, Oregon, and California during WWII. This led to the forced removal and incarceration of over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, who had to abandon their jobs, their homes, and their lives to be sent to one of ten concentration camps scattered in desolate, remote regions of the country. No Japanese Americans were ever charged, much less convicted, of espionage or sabotage against the United States.
Each year, the legislature recognizes this civil injustice and declares a Day of Remembrance. This year, Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva and her colleagues were joined on the Assembly Floor by internment camp survivors seen in the photo above.
For more information, visit my website.
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Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk represents the 65th Assembly District, which includes the Orange County communities of Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, Garden Grove, La Palma, and Stanton.