On November 18, Mayor David A. Bowers of Roanoke, Virginia, penned a statement asking for all government agencies in the area to delay the aid of Syrian refugees in light of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. The statement caught the eye of some, namely actor and activist George Takei, thanks to the section that invoked the Japanese internment camps during World War II and painted them as a positive measure that kept America safe from attack.
Takei, a Japanese-American who was held in the camps, responded to the letter in a Facebook post, saying:
“1) The internment (not a “sequester”) was not of Japanese “foreign nationals,” but of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. I was one of them, and my family and I spent 4 years in prison camps because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It is my life’s mission to never let such a thing happen again in America.
2) There never was any proven incident of espionage or sabotage from the suspected “enemies” then, just as there has been no act of terrorism from any of the 1,854 Syrian refugees the U.S. already has accepted. We were judged based on who we looked like, and that is about as un-American as it gets.”
Japanese internment camps are widely acknowledged as a dark spot in recent American history, with many Japanese citizens losing their homes and possessions in the process. It’s one of those things that people look back on with grief over the lengths that their ancestors went to in deference to their fear. Obviously, there are things about the Syrian refugee situation that are mirror images and things that aren’t, but Takei’s words deserve consideration.
Source: Facebook