LongBeachReport.com | LBReport.com | Governor Schwarzenegger Should Veto AB 1775 (Furutani) Re WWII <nobr>Japanese-American</nobr> Relocation Until "Concentration Camp" Terminology Is Changed; I Was Among Those Forced To Leave My Home, And I Know

AB 1755 author Assemblyman Warren Furutani represents part of Long Beach. Mayor Sato is the former Mayor of Long Beach. We invited her to comment on his bill. To view the text of AB 1775, click here. To hear the Aug. 24 Assembly floor statement of AB 1775 author Assemblymember Furutani, click here. To view the text of President Roosevelt's Exec. Order 9066, click here.

(Aug. 25, 2010) -- AB 1775 by Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D, Carson-Long Beach), passed by both houses of the California legislature with no negative votes, is ready to be signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

AB 1775 requires the Governor to proclaim January 30 as "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution." Designating that day of each year will have special significance to public schools and educational institutions and would encourage entities to observe that day by conducting exercises remembering the life of Fred Korematsu and recognizing the importance of preserving civil liberties.

I wholeheartedly support this concept. In fact, I donated my entire $20,000 U.S. government Redress Compensation payment to the Japanese American Citizens League to an endowment fund for the purpose of perpetuating the civics lessons to be learned by future generations as to what happened to our civil liberties by Executive Order 9066 of then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who carried out the evacuation of the west coast areas.

However, I believe the bill's text that refers to "concentration" camps needs to be changed to "relocation" or "assembly" centers which is the more accurate terminology.

American citizens of Japanese ancestry and their parents who were not permitted to become American citizens were ordered to relocation or assembly areas in inland and isolated parts of the country. To be sure, these camps were the barest minimum or primitive living conditions.

Those who are imprisoned in concentration camps would not be able to leave at will. The young people left the camps. Some of my classmates from college left the camp in Amache, Colorado and went to Greeley where I went to get my Bachelor of Arts degree.

My parents, two brothers and I left California on a Sunday afternoon in mid-March (after I returned home from San Jose State College on a Friday night) to be out of California before midnight on a cold, moonlit night with no other traveler on the highway. (We treasured liberty versus security.)

My urgent request is that the wording be changed from concentration camp to relocation or assembly center in all places in the bill where the word "concentration" is used. I favor having Governor Schwarzenegger veto AB 1775 in the form it was sent to him and then ask the bill's supporters to replace wording that currently conveys the wrong impression of what happened.

The internees were not law breaking prisoners or dangerous characters. They were your neighbors, schoolmates or friends.