WEBVTT

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(melancholy music)

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- 75 years ago, the FBI began
arresting Buddhist priests,

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Japanese language schoolteachers,
and community leaders.

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Within two months of the U.S. government

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began the mass incarceration
of all Japanese Americans

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from the West Coast.

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- I still remember being
seventeen when 9/11 happened.

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Probably the first allied
solidarity friendship event

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I remember attending at that young age,

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at such a difficult time for our country,

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was hosted by Japanese Americans
in southern California.

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- I think many of us
have been thinking about

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the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller,

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who you remember from World War II.

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- First they came for the Communists

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and I did not speak out,
because I was not a Communist.

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- Then they came to take
away the trade unionists.

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- And I did not speak out,

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because I was not a trade unionist.

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- Then they came to take away the Jews.

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- And I did not speak out,
because I was not a Jew.

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- [Dale] Then they came to take away me,

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and there was no one
left to speak out for me.

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(percussive music)

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- [Reporter] Candidate
Trump first floated the idea

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on Pearl Harbor Day, 2015.

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- Donald J. Trump is calling for

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a total and complete shutdown

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of Muslims entering the United States.

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- [Megan] He\'d support
a mandatory database

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to track all Muslims in the U.S.

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- We\'ve done it with
Iran, back a while ago.

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We did it during World
War II with Japanese,

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which, you know, call it what you will...

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- Come on.

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You\'re not proposing we go back

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to the days of internment camps, I hope.

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- No, no, no, I\'m not
proposing that at all, Megan,

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but what I am saying is that
we need to protect America.

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- [Megan] You should know
better than to suggest that.

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I mean, that\'s the kind of stuff

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that gets people scared, Carl.

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- Right.

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But I\'m just saying there
is precedent for it,

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and I\'m not saying....

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- How dare he?

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That was not a precedent.

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It was a warning that we must
never let that happen again.

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(exploding)

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- No matter how long it may take us

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to overcome this premeditated invasion,

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the American people in
their righteous might

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will win through to absolute victory.

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(applauding)

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- It was a national emergency.

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People were panicked.

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There were stories about submarines

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being off the coast, Japanese submarines.

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- And the Navy Secretary
suggested that there were

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Japanese spies and saboteurs
that aided the enemy attack.

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- I \'member that Sunday morning.

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I will never forget.

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We were working out in the field.

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Turned on the radio, just taking a rest,

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and then it was interrupted
with a news flash,

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Japan is bombing Pearl Harbor,

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and I remember saying, \"What
a stupid thing Japan is doing!

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\"Who do they think they
are, bombing our country?\"

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(melancholy music)

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- The next morning
there was a military man

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in front of our house,

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and then after that,

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we were not allowed to go
beyond a certain block.

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- This is my mom standing in line

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waiting to get her family
number that they would wear

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when they were to show up to
be removed from their homes.

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It\'s a remarkable photo
because it captures

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the expression on her face,

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but also the posters in the
back that notified people

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how many days they had before
they were gonna be removed.

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(melancholy music)

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- Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker,

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members of the Senate, of the House....

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- Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

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a great man who did great
things during the depression

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to get us out of that
signed Executive Order 9066.

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This nation was swept up
in war hysteria, racism,

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and the failure of political leadership.

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- [Saburo] I remember we
started to gather anything

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that was Japanese-y,
like magazines, records,

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pictures, anything, and
we started to burn them.

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(eerie music)

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(dramatic music)

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- The media was a primary
disseminator of stereotypes

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of not just Japanese,
but Asians more broadly.

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- [Narrator] Fanatically
convinced that the Japanese family

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was especially created
for one single purpose:

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to crush, to conquer,
and to rule like gods

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over all the other people of the earth.

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- One of the major themes
prior to World War II

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within the media was the Yellow Peril,

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that is, Asians posing as a threat

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to Western civilization and Christianity.

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- We had been depicted
in terms of stereotypes,

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rather unattractive stereotypes:

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comic buffoons, the silent servant,

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the vicious villain.

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The soil was tilled, so to speak.

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- When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,

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our West Coast became a
potential combat zone.

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Living in that zone were more than 100,000

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persons of Japanese ancestry,

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two-thirds of them American citizens.

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Military authorities therefore
determined that all of them,

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citizens and aliens
alike, would have to move.

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- And so right after Pearl
Harbor, they had us all register,

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and then shortly after the registry,

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they came down with a curfew.

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- Registration was not benign.

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It provided the infrastructure

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for the mass removal and confinement.

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First was the identification
of you as a marked person.

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Second was the given number, anonymity.

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- And then we discovered that
our bank accounts were frozen.

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We were financially paralyzed.

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And then, the soldiers came to get us.

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(melancholy music)

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And so my brother and I were
gazing out the front window,

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and we saw two soldiers
marching up our driveway.

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They carried rifles with
shiny bayonets on them,

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and literally at gunpoint, we
were ordered out of our home.

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We followed them out onto the driveway,

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and waited for our mother to come out,

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and when she came out, tears
were streaming down her cheeks.

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- [Elizabeth] Dorothea
was asked to photograph

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the evacuation of the Japanese Americans.

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She had done government photography

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before during the depression.

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She took her camera out on the streets,

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first in the city and
then out into the fields,

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where she did Migrant
Mother, with the children

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and the mother who can\'t help them.

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That same sensibility she brought with her

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in her photography of the internment,

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because she was looking
for the human story

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inside of a vast movement of people.

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(melancholy music)

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The government wanted a record
to show that this had been

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a humane process, that it had
been done in an orderly way,

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and that there was nothing
for anyone to complain about.

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(melancholy music)

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Dorothea\'s feelings were very different.

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To her, it was such a
suspension of civil liberties.

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She wanted to do this work. (laughs)

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It\'s not that anybody
was twisting her arm.

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She wanted to do this
to make her own point.

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When Dorothea was seven, she got polio,

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and from that point on,
she became an outsider.

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And that absolutely formed
her life as a photographer,

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and it gave her a tremendous
sympathy for people

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who were struck down by adversity.

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She wanted to make a record

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of what the lives were like for the people

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who were about to face
this extraordinary event.

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Women who had just put up
the last of the laundry.

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Beautiful family homes.

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Making sure the family pets
were in the photograph,

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so that you saw the dog

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that was gonna have to be left behind.

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A farmer the night before internment.

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It\'s so poignant; he\'s left
everything absolutely clean.

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There\'s not, nothing\'s out of place,

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and he\'s gotta walk away.

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- Those photographs are indispensable

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to our historic remembrance
of a really important past.

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I think they speak volumes.

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- The Chinese have a saying,

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one picture is worth a thousand words.

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And those pictures capture

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both the stress and the resilience.

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- Dorothea Lange had photographed my aunt,

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Kimiko Kitagaki, with all her
personal belongings, you know,

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getting ready to go to
Tanforan in San Bruno,

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which was the racetrack.

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They weren\'t set-up pictures.

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She was able to capture
moments in people\'s lives

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when their lives changed forever.

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(melancholy music)

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- The logo stands for our family.

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It\'s the Mochida family logo.

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And I haven\'t seen it on anything else,

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just on pieces of luggage
that we had with us

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when we were sent to camp.

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The fact that my dad put that
symbol on all our luggage

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to me means that the little possessions

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that we were able to take,
that he wanted to make sure

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that we could get them after we were done.

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- We had to leave so much behind.

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My father sold his car for $5.00.

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It was painful.

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(melancholy music)

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Everybody, the whole nation,

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our neighbors were looking
at us with suspicion,

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and fear, and some with outright hatred.

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- [Narrator] Now the actual
migration got under way.

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(upbeat music)

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The Army provided fleets of vans

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to transport household belongings,

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and buses to move the
people to assembly centers.

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The evacuees cooperated wholeheartedly.

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The many loyal among them
felt that this was a sacrifice

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they can make in behalf
of America\'s war effort.

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- This euphemistic language

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distorted what they were doing to us.

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Evacuation rather than forced removal.

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Assembly centers rather
than temporary prison camps.

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- You have confinement
with barbed wire fences

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and armed guards, guns pointing in.

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When your freedom is limited,

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incarceration\'s much more accurate

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about what happened to Japanese Americans

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as opposed to the word internment.

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- [Narrator] Now they
were taken to racetracks

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and fairgrounds, where the Army

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almost overnight had
built assembly centers.

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They lived here until
new pioneer communities

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could be completed on federally
owned lands in the interior.

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- The government narrative
about the incarceration

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was that the Japanese
Americans willingly went

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to these prisons, and what
they didn\'t tell for many years

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were the other stories,
the counter-narrative.

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- In 1942, Fred Korematsu was charged

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with refusing the exclusion
orders, and hid out,

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changed his name, and was arrested

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and then taken to the
horse stalls at Tanforan.

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- People don\'t realize
that my dad was vilified

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from day one of his resistance
of the military orders.

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When he was taken from federal
jail over to the Presidio

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and then over to Tanforan
Detention Assembly Center

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in San Bruno, no one wanted
anything to do with him.

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And they thought that if they
associated with my father,

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that some harm might come to them.

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Not even his brother supported him.

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- [Dale] He challenged his exclusion,

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but the Supreme Court upheld
the government incarceration

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of Japanese Americans,
and his case represented

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one of the worst in
American jurisprudence.

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Uprooting 110,000 Americans
of Japanese ancestry

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without the right to an attorney,

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without a hearing, without
the right to a trial,

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and not one act of espionage or sabotage

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ever being proven against
a Japanese American.

00:16:35.285 --> 00:16:38.205
(melancholy music)

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- What happened to us
didn\'t just suddenly happen

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because of Pearl Harbor.

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There was 40 years of
anti-Japanese movement,

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from the early 1900s, to
get rid of all the Japanese

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on the West Coast, because
of competition and racism.

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90% of all the vegetables in California

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were grown by Japanese American farmers.

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- Their farms were parceled
out and later auctioned,

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to, mainly whites.

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- We were assigned numbers.

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Our family number I still remember,

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one four seven three seven.

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And we were loaded onto buses,

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and then they ushered us to
our first accommodations,

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which it was the stables.

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- Each family then was
assigned one horse stall.

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For my parents to take
their three children

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and crowd into a smelly horse stall

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was a degrading, painful experience.

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- I don\'t think people realized

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the extent to which their
lives were gonna be upended.

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My mother would never have
dreamed that they were gonna be

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incarcerated for four and a half years.

00:18:42.746 --> 00:18:45.624
(melancholy music)

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- My mother, she had a portable
sewing machine, brand new.

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That was forbidden.

00:19:02.391 --> 00:19:05.768
That was contraband, because
we were not to take anything

00:19:05.769 --> 00:19:10.774
that was mechanical or had
sharp points or edges to it.

00:19:10.941 --> 00:19:15.194
My mother smuggled in her
portable sewing machine.

00:19:15.195 --> 00:19:18.990
She marched right past
those armed soldiers

00:19:18.991 --> 00:19:20.826
carrying a contraband.

00:19:29.751 --> 00:19:31.335
- I didn\'t know what we were doing there,

00:19:31.336 --> 00:19:34.088
and I often asked my mother, you know,

00:19:34.089 --> 00:19:35.173
when are we gonna leave,

00:19:35.174 --> 00:19:37.592
when are we gonna go back to Hayward,

00:19:37.593 --> 00:19:38.969
you know, what\'s happening,

00:19:39.803 --> 00:19:41.805
but she couldn\'t answer those questions.

00:20:01.742 --> 00:20:04.785
(train rattling)

00:20:04.786 --> 00:20:06.787
- [George] We were there
at Santa Anita Racetrack

00:20:06.788 --> 00:20:10.666
for a couple of months while
the camps were being built,

00:20:10.667 --> 00:20:12.668
and when the construction was completed,

00:20:12.669 --> 00:20:17.506
they loaded us onto
trains, and transported

00:20:17.507 --> 00:20:19.759
two-thirds of the way across the country

00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:22.595
to the swamps of southeastern Arkansas.

00:20:22.596 --> 00:20:25.098
(eerie music)

00:20:30.354 --> 00:20:34.191
- [Man] It was extremely
difficult being uprooted.

00:20:35.692 --> 00:20:36.943
- [Woman] The temperature soared

00:20:36.944 --> 00:20:40.072
from freezing to over 100 degrees.

00:20:41.365 --> 00:20:43.659
- [Woman] I remember
dust storms all the time.

00:20:44.534 --> 00:20:46.369
- [Woman] When the dust storm would come,

00:20:46.370 --> 00:20:47.663
you couldn\'t breathe.

00:21:04.012 --> 00:21:06.055
- My mother, she wrote in her diary

00:21:06.056 --> 00:21:08.516
about this wind that never stopped,

00:21:08.517 --> 00:21:09.851
about the sand in her face.

00:21:31.748 --> 00:21:33.207
My mother was pregnant here,

00:21:33.208 --> 00:21:36.378
and she gave birth to my brother here.

00:21:40.966 --> 00:21:45.345
It was here that they really
felt the peak of their despair.

00:21:48.140 --> 00:21:51.226
(footsteps grinding)

00:21:57.441 --> 00:22:01.861
When I read her diary, it\'s
one thing, but when I\'m here,

00:22:01.862 --> 00:22:04.406
I feel a whole range of emotions.

00:22:06.992 --> 00:22:11.038
I just, I\'m actually
wanting to feel this wind.

00:22:15.542 --> 00:22:20.505
Yeah, it\'s, that was
what they had, you know.

00:22:26.470 --> 00:22:29.389
(melancholy music)

00:22:38.023 --> 00:22:39.065
- They call it relocation,

00:22:39.066 --> 00:22:41.276
but I call it concentration camp.

00:22:46.406 --> 00:22:48.824
We didn\'t have any heat
in our flimsy barrack.

00:22:48.825 --> 00:22:53.788
My father caught pneumonia,
and, 21 days after we got there,

00:22:53.789 --> 00:22:56.249
he died in a makeshift barrack hospital.

00:23:25.612 --> 00:23:28.531
- Ansel Adams, the great
nature photographer,

00:23:28.532 --> 00:23:32.159
was a friend of the director of Manzanar,

00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.370
and was invited to come to the camp

00:23:34.371 --> 00:23:36.580
to photograph the people.

00:23:36.581 --> 00:23:39.583
I was just three years old at the time

00:23:39.584 --> 00:23:41.545
and it happened to be my birthday.

00:23:43.547 --> 00:23:46.006
There\'re basically no cameras in Manzanar,

00:23:46.007 --> 00:23:51.012
so for me, it\'s a memory
of kinda my beginnings.

00:23:53.348 --> 00:23:57.059
This is the only thing I
have during that time period.

00:23:57.060 --> 00:23:59.980
(percussive music)

00:24:09.948 --> 00:24:12.366
- Ansel Adams\'s work is really
important to talk about,

00:24:12.367 --> 00:24:15.703
because when he was brought to the camp,

00:24:15.704 --> 00:24:18.581
he was determined to show

00:24:18.582 --> 00:24:22.751
Japanese residents as human beings,

00:24:22.752 --> 00:24:25.754
and he didn\'t make them look like the rats

00:24:25.755 --> 00:24:27.883
that they were portrayed at the time.

00:24:29.134 --> 00:24:31.218
He was highly criticized

00:24:31.219 --> 00:24:33.847
for showing the enemy as human beings.

00:24:37.434 --> 00:24:40.978
- I thought he was a huge
man with these boots on,

00:24:40.979 --> 00:24:44.273
and there we were, standing and
waiting for school to start,

00:24:44.274 --> 00:24:48.778
and he asked us to be in the picture.

00:24:54.117 --> 00:24:56.327
- People of Japanese
descent were vilified,

00:24:56.328 --> 00:24:59.705
and they were shown as evil caricatures

00:24:59.706 --> 00:25:01.957
and they all had one face.

00:25:01.958 --> 00:25:05.961
And he gave a very individual human face

00:25:05.962 --> 00:25:08.797
to each person he photographed,

00:25:08.798 --> 00:25:11.259
and he photographed almost
everybody in the camp.

00:25:16.515 --> 00:25:20.226
- Nowadays, many critics
excoriate the pictures

00:25:20.227 --> 00:25:25.232
because they feel like he didn\'t
show the hardships of life.

00:25:28.235 --> 00:25:30.069
- There\'s a photograph he took

00:25:30.070 --> 00:25:31.695
of a mother and her daughters,

00:25:31.696 --> 00:25:34.073
and they\'re in very pretty clothes,

00:25:34.074 --> 00:25:37.451
and it just looks like they
have the loveliest little cabin.

00:25:37.452 --> 00:25:40.996
Well, Ansel left out they had the door

00:25:40.997 --> 00:25:43.333
that was at the end of the barrack.

00:25:49.464 --> 00:25:52.216
- Both Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange

00:25:52.217 --> 00:25:55.219
were forbidden by the
government to photograph

00:25:55.220 --> 00:25:57.806
the barbed wire fence or sentry towers.

00:25:59.808 --> 00:26:02.685
(children shouting)
(bat cracks)

00:26:02.686 --> 00:26:07.439
Those baseball fields were right
near the barbed wire fence.

00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:09.109
That\'s not in the photographs.

00:26:13.029 --> 00:26:15.030
- Dorothea Lange, she\'d
go in the location,

00:26:15.031 --> 00:26:17.116
she\'d have problems
with the administrator,

00:26:17.117 --> 00:26:20.202
trying to get access to
photographing in the camp.

00:26:20.203 --> 00:26:21.912
She had a conflict with them

00:26:21.913 --> 00:26:24.206
\'cause she was showing too much emotion,

00:26:24.207 --> 00:26:25.792
more than they wanted to see.

00:26:27.669 --> 00:26:29.044
- Everywhere she went,

00:26:29.045 --> 00:26:31.255
she was followed by the military police.

00:26:31.256 --> 00:26:34.508
There would be a police
guy accompanying her.

00:26:34.509 --> 00:26:38.304
She would be asked over and
over again to show her papers,

00:26:38.305 --> 00:26:41.056
and they would put her in a
room and tell he she had to wait

00:26:41.057 --> 00:26:43.392
until she could speak
to the military police

00:26:43.393 --> 00:26:44.435
and have her papers checked,

00:26:44.436 --> 00:26:48.147
and she\'d sit there fuming
with her camera in her lap.

00:26:48.148 --> 00:26:50.858
She wanted to get out
there and photograph.

00:26:50.859 --> 00:26:53.737
(melancholy music)

00:26:58.074 --> 00:26:59.783
The government made these

00:26:59.784 --> 00:27:02.037
photographic records for themselves.

00:27:02.871 --> 00:27:05.332
They did not tend to use them publicly.

00:27:06.541 --> 00:27:11.295
Some of them were impounded right away,

00:27:11.296 --> 00:27:15.342
photographs that they
felt looked suspicious.

00:27:16.760 --> 00:27:18.677
For example, the Japanese Americans

00:27:18.678 --> 00:27:21.805
built a lath house for starting seeds.

00:27:21.806 --> 00:27:25.434
Dorothea photographed people
working in these lath houses,

00:27:25.435 --> 00:27:30.440
but the shadows that fell from
the laths made it look like

00:27:30.607 --> 00:27:32.691
they were in prison behind bars,

00:27:32.692 --> 00:27:35.362
and so those were impounded immediately.

00:27:41.409 --> 00:27:43.952
Dorothea\'s photographs
actually after the war

00:27:43.953 --> 00:27:46.081
were put into the National Archives.

00:27:47.666 --> 00:27:50.250
They kind of were buried away

00:27:50.251 --> 00:27:54.631
and nobody saw them for a very long time.

00:27:56.466 --> 00:27:59.093
- I think in retrospect,
the government felt

00:27:59.094 --> 00:28:02.888
that it was a shame and an
embarrassing experience.

00:28:02.889 --> 00:28:06.809
They did not want it
documented or publicized.

00:28:06.810 --> 00:28:10.521
But where there is oppression,
there is resistance.

00:28:10.522 --> 00:28:15.485
Toyo Miyatake, who was a photographer,

00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:21.324
managed to make a box camera

00:28:21.533 --> 00:28:24.744
and sneak in film and take pictures.

00:28:32.127 --> 00:28:35.003
Miyatake took some fantastic photos,

00:28:35.004 --> 00:28:37.173
given the equipment that he had,

00:28:40.260 --> 00:28:44.763
like that iconic photo of
that boy on the barbed wire,

00:28:44.764 --> 00:28:46.850
the forbidden landscape.

00:28:52.772 --> 00:28:57.109
- Cameras were not allowed,
and we could not take pictures.

00:28:57.110 --> 00:29:01.864
My father was able to teach
art because art school

00:29:01.865 --> 00:29:06.870
was open to everyone
and it was a diversion.

00:29:09.831 --> 00:29:13.167
My mother also did
portraits and paintings.

00:29:13.168 --> 00:29:15.502
She painted knowing that they may be

00:29:15.503 --> 00:29:17.881
of historical significance sometime.

00:29:27.223 --> 00:29:28.599
- These were all interesting

00:29:28.600 --> 00:29:30.642
because they were protest messages.

00:29:30.643 --> 00:29:34.022
They were messages against
what was happening to them,

00:29:35.774 --> 00:29:38.734
the anger that they felt
towards the government

00:29:38.735 --> 00:29:40.736
for having done this to them,

00:29:40.737 --> 00:29:43.572
which they couldn\'t
express in public meetings,

00:29:43.573 --> 00:29:45.992
but they felt it very deeply.

00:30:02.467 --> 00:30:04.510
- The government and the Army developed

00:30:04.511 --> 00:30:06.596
what was called the loyalty questionnaire.

00:30:08.139 --> 00:30:09.848
There were a series of questions.

00:30:09.849 --> 00:30:14.019
The most prominent ones
were number 27 and 28,

00:30:14.020 --> 00:30:16.939
and these questions asked
if you would be willing

00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:18.607
to bear arms against the enemy.

00:30:18.608 --> 00:30:21.109
- And will you forswear any allegiance

00:30:21.110 --> 00:30:22.444
to the Emperor of Japan,

00:30:22.445 --> 00:30:25.239
and most of us didn\'t even
know who they\'re talking about,

00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:28.450
and, besides, we\'re Americans,
so why would they ask us

00:30:28.451 --> 00:30:31.161
about the Emperor of Japan?

00:30:31.162 --> 00:30:32.955
- My father said, \"They took my business,

00:30:32.956 --> 00:30:35.999
\"they took our home,
they took our freedom.

00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:38.043
\"Now they want our dignity.

00:30:38.044 --> 00:30:41.213
\"We will not submit to that.\"

00:30:41.214 --> 00:30:43.007
And they both answered no.

00:30:44.509 --> 00:30:46.510
- If you answered yes-yes,

00:30:46.511 --> 00:30:49.638
you were automatically
put in the loyal category,

00:30:49.639 --> 00:30:51.723
which meant then you could be drafted.

00:30:51.724 --> 00:30:55.395
You could also, have clearance
to leave and go back home.

00:30:56.688 --> 00:31:01.149
If you answered no-no, or
if you refused to answer,

00:31:01.150 --> 00:31:04.903
or if you gave a partial
answer, or if you did no-yes,

00:31:04.904 --> 00:31:07.656
then you were all put in
the disloyal category.

00:31:07.657 --> 00:31:10.242
- Disloyal, we, they weren\'t disloyal.

00:31:10.243 --> 00:31:12.411
They were outraged.

00:31:12.412 --> 00:31:15.331
(melancholy music)

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:19.626
- The government decided that all those

00:31:19.627 --> 00:31:21.128
who were considered disloyal

00:31:21.129 --> 00:31:23.631
needed to be segregated
to a separate prison camp.

00:31:24.632 --> 00:31:29.637
Tule Lake was the camp where 12,000 people

00:31:29.971 --> 00:31:34.349
who protested this ill-conceived,

00:31:34.350 --> 00:31:39.355
incompetently administered
loyalty questionnaire

00:31:39.439 --> 00:31:42.441
ended up being sent to Tule Lake,

00:31:42.442 --> 00:31:45.236
which became a maximum security prison.

00:31:46.321 --> 00:31:50.991
- So now, they\'re gonna treat
them like hardened criminals.

00:31:50.992 --> 00:31:53.368
Three layers of barbed wire fence,

00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:56.914
a half a dozen tanks
patrolling the perimeter.

00:31:56.915 --> 00:32:01.084
- Instead of the standard
eight guard towers,

00:32:01.085 --> 00:32:02.670
there were 24 guard towers.

00:32:04.172 --> 00:32:08.508
It was harder to get coal, it
was harder to have hot water,

00:32:08.509 --> 00:32:11.637
my mother writes about
how difficult it was

00:32:11.638 --> 00:32:13.890
to get enough milk for the children.

00:32:16.851 --> 00:32:21.856
- They forced the internees
to build a cement jailhouse,

00:32:23.316 --> 00:32:25.526
which we referred to as a stockade.

00:32:27.403 --> 00:32:30.238
They were put into that cement jailhouse

00:32:30.239 --> 00:32:32.241
and they were interrogated.

00:32:33.076 --> 00:32:34.869
It was brutal.

00:32:35.745 --> 00:32:39.749
- The stockade imprisoned
over two hundred people.

00:32:40.917 --> 00:32:44.628
They were held for things like being

00:32:44.629 --> 00:32:47.589
too smart for their own good,

00:32:47.590 --> 00:32:51.426
or associates with troublemakers.

00:32:51.427 --> 00:32:53.512
There were no charges.

00:32:53.513 --> 00:32:54.972
There were no sentences.

00:32:54.973 --> 00:32:56.891
Nobody knew why they were in there.

00:32:58.851 --> 00:33:00.018
- My father was a dissident.

00:33:00.019 --> 00:33:02.437
He was opposed to how
they were being treated.

00:33:02.438 --> 00:33:03.897
He was opposed to the fact

00:33:03.898 --> 00:33:06.901
that their Constitutional
rights were violated.

00:33:09.112 --> 00:33:11.989
So my father gives a five-sentence speech

00:33:11.990 --> 00:33:14.908
saying that we need to
ask the U.S. government

00:33:14.909 --> 00:33:17.495
to treat us equal to the free people.

00:33:18.746 --> 00:33:22.290
He was taken, put in
the jail in Tule Lake,

00:33:22.291 --> 00:33:24.711
and then removed to
Bismarck, North Dakota.

00:33:26.629 --> 00:33:28.922
My mother had no idea where he was going,

00:33:28.923 --> 00:33:30.550
what was going to happen to him.

00:33:31.426 --> 00:33:35.178
She says in her diary, I
wonder if today\'s the day

00:33:35.179 --> 00:33:37.098
they\'re gonna line us up and shoot us.

00:33:38.307 --> 00:33:41.227
(melancholy music)

00:33:43.229 --> 00:33:47.775
- The war never ended for
Japanese who were incarcerated.

00:33:50.987 --> 00:33:54.656
Despite being released, given scanty funds

00:33:54.657 --> 00:33:58.160
for their bus ride, there
was considerable anxiety

00:33:58.161 --> 00:33:59.870
and wondering about the neighbors

00:33:59.871 --> 00:34:03.499
and their reception upon coming back.

00:34:15.303 --> 00:34:16.803
- The hardest thing, I think, for me

00:34:16.804 --> 00:34:18.722
was when we came back and were in school

00:34:18.723 --> 00:34:20.849
and were taunted a lot by other students.

00:34:20.850 --> 00:34:24.061
You know, they called us Jap
and made negative remarks

00:34:24.062 --> 00:34:25.897
about how we should\'ve been put away.

00:34:30.026 --> 00:34:32.402
- My sister was a senior,

00:34:32.403 --> 00:34:34.696
and when announcement came for all seniors

00:34:34.697 --> 00:34:36.615
to go to the principal\'s office

00:34:36.616 --> 00:34:38.992
to get their cap and gown measurement,

00:34:38.993 --> 00:34:42.329
she excitedly joined her
classmates and went there,

00:34:42.330 --> 00:34:45.082
and when she got there, the
principal took her aside

00:34:45.083 --> 00:34:47.501
and said, \"We decided
we don\'t want any Japs

00:34:47.502 --> 00:34:49.879
\"at our graduation, so you can\'t attend.\"

00:34:54.634 --> 00:34:59.263
- Our first home was on Skid
Row, downtown Los Angeles.

00:35:02.308 --> 00:35:06.020
My teacher called me the little Jap boy.

00:35:07.563 --> 00:35:09.189
It stung.

00:35:09.190 --> 00:35:11.024
And she was mean to me.

00:35:11.025 --> 00:35:13.360
Occasionally, you know, when
I felt a little confident,

00:35:13.361 --> 00:35:14.903
I would raise my hand.

00:35:14.904 --> 00:35:16.364
She would look the other way.

00:35:18.699 --> 00:35:20.659
By that time, I was getting to understand

00:35:20.660 --> 00:35:24.246
that my parents were very
hurt by the internment,

00:35:24.247 --> 00:35:25.957
and so I didn\'t tell my parents.

00:35:29.085 --> 00:35:30.961
- The camps were closing down.

00:35:30.962 --> 00:35:32.796
People were being released,

00:35:32.797 --> 00:35:36.800
except for those that had
been identified as dissidents.

00:35:36.801 --> 00:35:40.303
So my mother, this was
really one of the most

00:35:40.304 --> 00:35:42.056
heart-wrenching parts of her diary,

00:35:42.890 --> 00:35:45.892
every day she was hoping
that she would be released,

00:35:45.893 --> 00:35:49.146
and every day other people\'s
names were shown on the list

00:35:49.147 --> 00:35:50.523
and her name never came up.

00:35:51.482 --> 00:35:54.443
(melancholy music)

00:36:09.125 --> 00:36:10.792
- [Reporter] In San
Francisco Federal Court,

00:36:10.793 --> 00:36:12.294
an echo from World War II.

00:36:12.295 --> 00:36:15.589
It\'s a sad chapter, the
internment of Japanese Americans.

00:36:15.590 --> 00:36:18.133
At issue today is whether
the U.S. government

00:36:18.134 --> 00:36:21.720
lied about why those Japanese
Americans were put in camps.

00:36:21.721 --> 00:36:24.222
- [Reporter] For forty years,
Fred Korematsu has lived

00:36:24.223 --> 00:36:25.807
with a criminal conviction,

00:36:25.808 --> 00:36:28.602
his name attached to a
landmark Supreme Court ruling

00:36:28.603 --> 00:36:30.937
that in time of war, American citizens

00:36:30.938 --> 00:36:33.565
can be imprisoned on the basis of race.

00:36:33.566 --> 00:36:37.402
In 1942, Korematsu refused
to obey military orders

00:36:37.403 --> 00:36:40.780
interning more than
100,000 Japanese Americans.

00:36:40.781 --> 00:36:42.949
The Army justified the mass imprisonment

00:36:42.950 --> 00:36:46.203
as a military necessity,
citing evidence of espionage

00:36:46.204 --> 00:36:48.622
and sabotage by Japanese Americans,

00:36:48.623 --> 00:36:52.000
including signaling enemy
ships from the West Coast.

00:36:52.001 --> 00:36:54.377
- The government lied
to the Supreme Court.

00:36:54.378 --> 00:36:55.587
They were telling lies

00:36:55.588 --> 00:36:57.672
about the danger of Japanese Americans,

00:36:57.673 --> 00:37:00.842
both about instances of
espionage and sabotage,

00:37:00.843 --> 00:37:05.180
and had altered evidence to
win these cases at all costs.

00:37:05.181 --> 00:37:07.807
So fraud was committed
on the Supreme Court

00:37:07.808 --> 00:37:10.185
in the original decisions
of Korematsu, Hirabayashi,

00:37:10.186 --> 00:37:13.772
and Yasui, which upheld the
government incarceration

00:37:13.773 --> 00:37:15.941
and exclusion of Japanese Americans.

00:37:15.942 --> 00:37:17.692
- [Reporter] Internal documents now reveal

00:37:17.693 --> 00:37:21.029
that at the time, FBI
director J. Edgar Hoove wrote,

00:37:21.030 --> 00:37:22.489
\"in no case has there been

00:37:22.490 --> 00:37:24.991
\"illicit signaling from shore to ship.\"

00:37:24.992 --> 00:37:28.119
- Even J. Edgar Hoover,
no fan of civil rights,

00:37:28.120 --> 00:37:28.955
said that, you know,

00:37:28.956 --> 00:37:30.789
I have files on all the dangerous people.

00:37:30.790 --> 00:37:32.540
He had files on everyone, of course,

00:37:32.541 --> 00:37:35.168
and his conclusion was that we know

00:37:35.169 --> 00:37:37.879
who the dangerous ones are,
and there\'s not very many

00:37:37.880 --> 00:37:39.965
of \'em and we can take care of them.

00:37:39.966 --> 00:37:41.549
- [Reporter] A Justice
Department attorney wrote

00:37:41.550 --> 00:37:43.885
that statements of espionage and sabotage

00:37:43.886 --> 00:37:45.720
are intentional falsehoods.

00:37:45.721 --> 00:37:49.141
- During the war, there were
about 18 spies arrested.

00:37:50.309 --> 00:37:52.645
None of them were of Japanese ancestry.

00:37:53.980 --> 00:37:55.897
- [Reporter] The Enemy
Alien Control Division said,

00:37:55.898 --> 00:37:58.733
\"it is highly unfair
to this racial minority

00:37:58.734 --> 00:38:01.028
\"that these lies go uncorrected.\"

00:38:02.113 --> 00:38:05.032
(melancholy music)

00:38:07.243 --> 00:38:10.161
- The issue before me was
whether the government

00:38:10.162 --> 00:38:12.998
had misrepresented certain facts,

00:38:12.999 --> 00:38:17.419
both to the District Court
and to the Supreme Court.

00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:19.754
- I had to do some real deep thinking

00:38:19.755 --> 00:38:22.966
in order to reopen this case again,

00:38:22.967 --> 00:38:25.885
and I am very happy that I did,

00:38:25.886 --> 00:38:28.763
because this is not only for,

00:38:28.764 --> 00:38:31.599
just the Japanese American citizens,

00:38:31.600 --> 00:38:34.103
but it\'s for all American citizens.

00:38:35.104 --> 00:38:39.816
- In court, I started out
saying, we are here today,

00:38:39.817 --> 00:38:42.610
to seek a measure of justice
denied to Fred Koretmatsu

00:38:42.611 --> 00:38:45.947
and the Japanese American
people some 40 years ago.

00:38:45.948 --> 00:38:47.824
And Fred gave a really strong argument

00:38:47.825 --> 00:38:50.535
about how the last time
he was in this court,

00:38:50.536 --> 00:38:51.704
he was in handcuffs.

00:38:53.164 --> 00:38:58.127
- So the government offered
Mr. Korematsu a pardon.

00:38:59.337 --> 00:39:01.629
I heard Mr. Korematsu
say a couple of times

00:39:01.630 --> 00:39:04.591
that maybe he should have
offered them a pardon, (laughs)

00:39:04.592 --> 00:39:07.552
because they were the ones
that needed to be forgiven.

00:39:07.553 --> 00:39:10.638
- My father never
considered for one minute

00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:12.849
to accept a pardon from the government.

00:39:12.850 --> 00:39:16.436
He was so deep-rooted in his belief

00:39:16.437 --> 00:39:20.607
that the government was wrong
that he would never, ever

00:39:20.608 --> 00:39:22.400
accept a pardon on any condition,

00:39:22.401 --> 00:39:25.820
\'cause a pardon means that you are guilty,

00:39:25.821 --> 00:39:27.698
and he was never guilty.

00:39:29.825 --> 00:39:31.993
- [Dale] There was a crowd
of about 1,000 people,

00:39:31.994 --> 00:39:34.913
many of whom were people
who were incarcerated.

00:39:34.914 --> 00:39:38.500
You could hear them quietly
crying during the hearings.

00:39:38.501 --> 00:39:41.836
The court ruled that there
was no military justification

00:39:41.837 --> 00:39:44.130
for an incarceration
of Japanese Americans.

00:39:44.131 --> 00:39:46.132
- The courtroom just erupted,

00:39:46.133 --> 00:39:49.636
and people came up to
my father and, you know,

00:39:49.637 --> 00:39:53.348
hugged him and congratulated
him and they were all in tears.

00:39:53.349 --> 00:39:55.266
This weight went off his shoulders,

00:39:55.267 --> 00:39:56.852
lifted off his shoulders.

00:39:58.187 --> 00:39:59.771
- This kind of thing should not happen,

00:39:59.772 --> 00:40:04.276
and it should serve as
a warning, to all of us.

00:40:06.862 --> 00:40:11.199
- Even though Judge Patel
overturned my father\'s conviction,

00:40:11.200 --> 00:40:13.410
Korematsu versus United States

00:40:13.411 --> 00:40:16.413
is still on the Supreme Court record.

00:40:16.414 --> 00:40:18.706
It\'s been discredited,
but the Supreme Court

00:40:18.707 --> 00:40:20.333
can only reverse itself.

00:40:20.334 --> 00:40:22.711
And as of today, it has not done so.

00:40:26.549 --> 00:40:28.883
- I was too young to understand,

00:40:28.884 --> 00:40:31.219
but I do remember the barbed wire fence

00:40:31.220 --> 00:40:34.223
from which my parents
warned me to stay away.

00:40:35.182 --> 00:40:38.601
I remember the sight of high guard towers.

00:40:38.602 --> 00:40:41.521
I remember soldiers carrying rifles.

00:40:41.522 --> 00:40:43.607
And I remember being afraid.

00:40:44.733 --> 00:40:47.527
- There was two parts to this.

00:40:47.528 --> 00:40:50.280
One was the reparations of $20,000

00:40:50.281 --> 00:40:52.574
for all surviving members, and then,

00:40:52.575 --> 00:40:54.993
there was the Presidential apology.

00:40:54.994 --> 00:40:59.122
- We gather here today
to right a grave wrong.

00:40:59.123 --> 00:41:00.665
More than forty years ago,

00:41:00.666 --> 00:41:02.750
shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,

00:41:02.751 --> 00:41:06.379
120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry

00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:09.757
living in the United States
were forcibly removed

00:41:09.758 --> 00:41:13.720
from their homes and placed
in makeshift internment camps.

00:41:13.721 --> 00:41:17.098
This action was taken
without trial, without jury.

00:41:17.099 --> 00:41:19.018
It was based solely on race.

00:41:19.977 --> 00:41:22.937
- So my mother got her check, and I said,

00:41:22.938 --> 00:41:24.814
\"I wanna see it before you cash it.

00:41:24.815 --> 00:41:25.774
\"Okay, where\'s the check?\"

00:41:25.775 --> 00:41:28.985
She said, \"It\'s over there, somewhere.\"

00:41:28.986 --> 00:41:33.991
On the wall was framed already
the Presidential apology,

00:41:36.494 --> 00:41:40.121
and somewhere in that pile
was the twenty grand. (laughs)

00:41:40.122 --> 00:41:44.125
And, I said, \"Mom, what\'s it mean to you?\"

00:41:44.126 --> 00:41:47.838
And she said, \"I feel like
I finally got my face back.\"

00:41:48.839 --> 00:41:51.759
(melancholy music)

00:41:58.057 --> 00:41:59.516
- [Richard] Dorothea Lange\'s
always said that she did

00:41:59.517 --> 00:42:02.686
a very bad job of her
incarceration photographs.

00:42:04.563 --> 00:42:06.981
I think it was because it
was such a very difficult

00:42:06.982 --> 00:42:09.651
and sad experience in her
life that she just associates

00:42:09.652 --> 00:42:12.237
her work as not being up to her standards.

00:42:12.238 --> 00:42:14.614
But it was very obvious from
just looking at those pictures

00:42:14.615 --> 00:42:16.158
that she did a great job.

00:42:17.660 --> 00:42:19.619
- [Elizabeth] Dorothea
said, \"On the surface,

00:42:19.620 --> 00:42:21.538
\"it looked like a narrow job.

00:42:21.539 --> 00:42:24.040
\"Actually, it wasn\'t narrow at all.

00:42:24.041 --> 00:42:27.627
\"The deeper I got into
it, the bigger it became.

00:42:27.628 --> 00:42:29.462
\"I never had a comfortable feeling

00:42:29.463 --> 00:42:31.757
\"about that war relocation job.\"

00:42:33.801 --> 00:42:36.970
Because the challenges were
so difficult in the job,

00:42:36.971 --> 00:42:40.848
the way she was really being
stepped on by the government,

00:42:40.849 --> 00:42:45.854
and controlled in what she could
do, it just chafed for her.

00:42:45.980 --> 00:42:49.482
She hated being restricted,
and those kinda restrictions

00:42:49.483 --> 00:42:52.361
meant she couldn\'t get the
photographs she really wanted.

00:42:55.447 --> 00:42:58.117
- Those are like the iconic
images of the internment.

00:42:59.785 --> 00:43:01.828
If we didn\'t have these photographs,

00:43:01.829 --> 00:43:05.331
this story would be a, it\'s
a blip in U.S. history.

00:43:05.332 --> 00:43:07.208
- You know, people look
back and they say, well,

00:43:07.209 --> 00:43:12.214
these things can\'t happen
again, but I don\'t believe that.

00:43:12.840 --> 00:43:16.719
I see, you know, the hysteria over

00:43:20.055 --> 00:43:21.724
people of Muslim faith

00:43:22.641 --> 00:43:27.646
being almost the same level.

00:43:32.151 --> 00:43:34.360
- The Japanese American
community who can speak

00:43:34.361 --> 00:43:38.114
from personal experience, many
of them survivors themselves

00:43:38.115 --> 00:43:41.701
of the internment camps right
here in the United States,

00:43:41.702 --> 00:43:44.412
humanizes the worst case scenario.

00:43:44.413 --> 00:43:47.373
We don\'t have to convince
Japanese Americans

00:43:47.374 --> 00:43:50.418
that national security policy unchecked

00:43:50.419 --> 00:43:54.089
can tear apart our
country\'s Bill of Rights.

00:43:55.883 --> 00:43:58.093
- This was done to us in America.

00:43:59.053 --> 00:44:01.929
And you would think at the
time it was just so horrifying,

00:44:01.930 --> 00:44:04.223
and when I think of my mom
and dad and the sacrifices

00:44:04.224 --> 00:44:05.266
they had to make, and the people

00:44:05.267 --> 00:44:06.934
that lost all their businesses,

00:44:06.935 --> 00:44:10.021
and yet we\'re on the
verge of doing it again.

00:44:10.022 --> 00:44:13.650
- It\'s the same kind of sweeping
generalized condemnation,

00:44:13.651 --> 00:44:16.444
characterization of a group of people.

00:44:16.445 --> 00:44:20.782
We\'re Americans, but we look like

00:44:20.783 --> 00:44:22.283
the people that bombed Pearl Harbor,

00:44:22.284 --> 00:44:25.286
so we got categorized as such.

00:44:25.287 --> 00:44:28.456
(siren wailing)
(helicopter whirring)

00:44:28.457 --> 00:44:31.377
(melancholy music)

00:44:34.380 --> 00:44:35.421
- I turned on the television

00:44:35.422 --> 00:44:40.009
and I watched in horror as
so many different things

00:44:40.010 --> 00:44:42.304
that I loved and believed
in were attacked.

00:44:44.640 --> 00:44:48.184
And I saw my community come under attack,

00:44:48.185 --> 00:44:51.104
people having to line up
outside of immigration buildings

00:44:51.105 --> 00:44:55.817
for special registration,
mosques being targeted,

00:44:55.818 --> 00:44:58.152
all things that hadn\'t
really occurred to me

00:44:58.153 --> 00:44:59.738
growing up in the United States.

00:45:10.791 --> 00:45:12.208
- The day after September 11th,

00:45:12.209 --> 00:45:15.169
the Japanese American
organizations called many of

00:45:15.170 --> 00:45:17.338
the Muslim groups around
the country, and they said,

00:45:17.339 --> 00:45:18.673
we wanna offer you support.

00:45:18.674 --> 00:45:19.842
We\'ve been through this.

00:45:23.345 --> 00:45:25.555
- Camps don\'t happen overnight.

00:45:25.556 --> 00:45:27.890
Mass arrests don\'t happen overnight.

00:45:27.891 --> 00:45:29.183
They\'re a process.

00:45:29.184 --> 00:45:31.644
They begin with the fomenting of hate.

00:45:31.645 --> 00:45:33.563
They\'re followed by government policy

00:45:33.564 --> 00:45:36.232
that collects more
information than they need to,

00:45:36.233 --> 00:45:38.359
and then it\'s slow targeting.

00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:40.236
First we have to find
where the Muslims are.

00:45:40.237 --> 00:45:41.571
Then we have to get them registered.

00:45:41.572 --> 00:45:44.991
Then we send FBI informants
into their mosques.

00:45:44.992 --> 00:45:46.534
Then we come for them.

00:45:46.535 --> 00:45:48.953
- [George] We are standing in solidarity

00:45:48.954 --> 00:45:50.705
with the Muslim community.

00:45:50.706 --> 00:45:52.832
- [Reporter] Actor and
activist George Takei

00:45:52.833 --> 00:45:56.461
unveils a petition signed by
more than 300,000 Americans

00:45:56.462 --> 00:46:00.631
opposing any sort of Muslim
ban by President Trump.

00:46:00.632 --> 00:46:05.094
- We are gonna be relentless
in raising the awareness,

00:46:05.095 --> 00:46:07.389
on the part of Americans.

00:46:11.560 --> 00:46:16.022
National security was used
when Pearl Harbor was bombed

00:46:16.023 --> 00:46:18.983
to incarcerate us, and national security

00:46:18.984 --> 00:46:20.651
is being brought up again.

00:46:20.652 --> 00:46:23.946
They\'re using this false fear

00:46:23.947 --> 00:46:26.449
of national security being in jeopardy.

00:46:26.450 --> 00:46:27.284
- [Man] No wall!

00:46:27.285 --> 00:46:28.409
- [Crowd] Sanctuary for all!

00:46:28.410 --> 00:46:29.410
- No bans!
- No bans!

00:46:29.411 --> 00:46:30.745
- No wall!
- No wall!

00:46:30.746 --> 00:46:32.580
- [Crowd] Sanctuary for all!

00:46:32.581 --> 00:46:33.831
- No bans!
- No bans!

00:46:33.832 --> 00:46:35.166
- No wall!
- No wall!

00:46:35.167 --> 00:46:37.084
- [Crowd] Sanctuary for all!

00:46:37.085 --> 00:46:38.085
- No bans!
- No bans!

00:46:38.086 --> 00:46:39.128
- No wall!
- No wall!

00:46:39.129 --> 00:46:40.797
- [Crowd] Sanctuary for all!

00:46:40.798 --> 00:46:41.632
- No bans!
- No bans!

00:46:41.633 --> 00:46:43.090
- No wall!
- No wall!

00:46:43.091 --> 00:46:45.427
- [Crowd] Sanctuary for all!

00:46:46.762 --> 00:46:49.723
(crowd chattering)

00:46:52.810 --> 00:46:54.602
- [Woman] Okay, let\'s go over there.

00:46:54.603 --> 00:46:56.563
He\'s gonna put it up on the wall, okay?

00:46:57.606 --> 00:46:59.774
- When we see someone being harassed,

00:46:59.775 --> 00:47:01.317
we need to stand up.

00:47:01.318 --> 00:47:03.611
We need to call people out.

00:47:03.612 --> 00:47:05.822
We need to question the hateful speech

00:47:05.823 --> 00:47:07.740
that we may be hearing.

00:47:07.741 --> 00:47:11.285
I know that it can go
against your natural instinct

00:47:11.286 --> 00:47:15.373
to be assertive, to be
proactive in your day-to-day,

00:47:15.374 --> 00:47:17.458
but we need to have each other\'s backs

00:47:17.459 --> 00:47:20.462
because we are always stronger in numbers.

00:47:21.421 --> 00:47:25.132
- For a baby and a wedding
are the only registries

00:47:25.133 --> 00:47:28.095
I support, (cheering)

00:47:30.305 --> 00:47:34.976
and if a Muslim one ever
comes to fruition, sign me up.

00:47:34.977 --> 00:47:37.770
(cheering)
Will you be signing?

00:47:37.771 --> 00:47:40.022
I said, will you be signing?

00:47:40.023 --> 00:47:44.277
(cheering)
\'Cause this is survival.

00:47:44.278 --> 00:47:47.822
- We gotta make sure that
we defend our Constitution,

00:47:47.823 --> 00:47:50.408
that we defend our brothers and sisters

00:47:50.409 --> 00:47:51.869
who are in harm\'s way,

00:47:52.786 --> 00:47:56.415
and we have to make sure that
we defend our own humanity,

00:47:57.624 --> 00:48:00.710
because that\'s really what\'s
at stake in this country.

00:48:00.711 --> 00:48:04.338
- [Zahra] And we will
stand by you to ensure

00:48:04.339 --> 00:48:08.468
that our country\'s history
does not repeat itself.

00:48:10.304 --> 00:48:13.222
Know that I am so grateful for all of you.

00:48:13.223 --> 00:48:15.809
Thank you.
(cheering)

00:48:27.321 --> 00:48:30.741
(percussive jazzy music)