Japanese Internment Memorial essay

The Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Following the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. The order allowed for the relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to internment camps.

Despite much protest, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the order in 1944.

Ruth Asawa is a Japanese American sculptor, who was relocated to an internment camp as a child. Asawa sculpted the San Jose American Interment Memorial. The bronze monument was unveiled in 1994 on the East Plaza of the Federal Building on 280 S. First St., San Jose, Calif. The sculpture timeline ranges from the Japanese-West Coast immigration to the signing of the congressional legislation, which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government.

The first side of the sculpture depicts the Japanese-West Coast immigration. This side portrays the historical background of Japanese American life.

On the side of the sculpture is a copy of Executive order 9066.

The second side of the sculpture depicts the Japanese Americans being relocated. What stuck out to me the most was the depiction of Japanese families being forced onto the train. On the bottom left corner of the sculpture there is a man talking and standing with his wife and three children. His wife is carrying a baby in her arms and looks distraught. The sad looking man is carrying his luggage. What is most disturbing to me is that there is a long line of armed soldiers standing behind them. One soldier to the front of the line is pointing a rifle with a bayonet towards the people on the train.

The rest of the second side depicts life inside the internment camps. There are armed guards everywhere and many Japanese families seemingly trying to get through the day. With the exception of a baseball game being played, the whole scene looks very somber.

These Japanese Americans and Japanese were incarcerated for up to four years without due process of the law or any factual basis. Many died due to inadequate medical care, and some were killed by guards for allegedly resisting orders.

Although maybe not to the same extent as the Japanese American Internment, I believe that something similar can happen again. Executive order 9066 permitted the military to circumvent the constitutional safeguards of American citizens in the name of national security. Just recently, President Obama gave permission to the military to assassinate an American Citizen without due process. The citizen was alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. drone attack. Although Awlaki was undoubtedly a bad person, he was assassinated without due process and any charges.

As Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for The American Civil Liberties Union stated, “The government’s authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president – any president – with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country.”

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