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Declaring February 19, 2018, as Day of Remembrance in honor of the 120,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II, as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, and honoring the heroism, courage and loyalty of Japanese American World War II veterans and internees by continuing their fight to uphold constitutional freedoms and justice for all against xenophobia and hate.
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WHEREAS, On February 19, 1942, two weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the exclusion and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans and legal residents of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States in incarceration camps during World War II, thus continuing a decades-long tradition of codifying acts of socioeconomic exclusion directed towards Asian American communities; and
WHEREAS, Japanese internees were uprooted from their homes and jobs, and consequently housed in tar paper-covered barracks that were structurally unsound, lacked plumbing and cooking facilities, and were incredibly overcrowded, with 25 people being forced to live in spaces built for four; and
WHEREAS, These internees also lost substantial property--amounting to an estimated $1-3 billion--in addition to experiencing crippling trauma. Approximately twelve internees were shot and killed as they attempted to escape from the camps, while dozens more died due to inadequate healthcare; and
WHEREAS, Over two-thirds of the Japanese Americans interned were American citizens, with the vast majority of incarcerated Japanese non-citizens having resided in the United States for over twenty years; and
WHEREAS, Italian Americans and German Americans were also restricted in exercising their freedoms through extreme measures that required identification cards, travel restrictions, and seizure of personal property. Additionally, 11,500 Germans and 1,881 Italians were interned ...
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