REAGAN ON JAPANESE INTERNMENT
I took my brother and dad to the internment memorial in DC yesterday, and noticed again how prominently Ronald Reagan's name is featured on the memorial. It was Reagan who signed the federal law establishing restitution payments and officially apologizing to those injured by internment. Here are some of Reagan's remarks on August 10, 1988 when he signed the relevant bill:
Yes, the Nation was then at war, struggling for its survival and it's not for us today to pass judgment upon those who may have made mistakes while engaged in that great struggle. Yet we must recognize that the internment of Japanese-Americans was just that: a mistake. For throughout the war, Japanese-Americans in the tens of thousands remained utterly loyal to the United States. Indeed, scores of Japanese-Americans volunteered for our Armed Forces, many stepping forward in the internment camps themselves. The 442d Regimental Combat Team, made up entirely of Japanese-Americans, served with immense distinction to defend this nation, their nation. Yet back at home, the soldier's families were being denied the very freedom for which so many of the soldiers themselves were laying down their lives.
. . .
The legislation that I am about to sign provides for a restitution payment to each of the 60,000 surviving Japanese-Americans of the 120,000 who were relocated or detained. Yet no payment can make up for those lost years. So, what is most important in this bill has less to do with property than with honor. For here we admit a wrong; here we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.
Source: here. Just wondering: for those who really think that internment was justified, do they think that this apology should be retracted? Should the restitution payments be returned?
1 Comments:
Thanks for noticing this, Brett. And credit where it is due: Reagan made a good statement there. Any statement that uses the word "honor" honorably is a good thing and a welcome relief.
Re passing judgment: when I think about the Malkin-Muller debate, one thing occurs to me that I think neither person addressed sufficiently online, although both may have touched on it in their books: the effects of shock and demoralization not just because of Pearl Harbor, but because of the loss of Singapore, the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales, the loss of the Philippines, and the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea as well. The Japanese Army and Navy seemed like unstoppable juggernauts; the words "Midway" and "miracle" would be linked for more reasons than just the famous five minutes.
Coupled with the German blitzkrieg successes, I think there was low morale verging on or crossing over to panic throughout the remaining western democracies -- and things didn't just look very bad, they were very bad.
This isn't intended to excuse the internments, but more to provide a context: calm thinking was in short supply. Taking a different lesson from those days: saying "slow down, defend our people and our values" might have served us well after 9/11, as it probably will after the next major attack, if or when that happens.
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