Speech #820200399

Most of those people today are American citizens. They have come into the right of citizenship by reason of their birth in Hawaii. But during this long period the parents of most of them have been denied the right of naturalization. The record of Americans of Japanese ancestry in World War II dramatically vindicates the soundness of the policy under which they were given the privilege of citizenship by reason of birth in this country. But. more than that. it gave great emphasis to the injustice of denying their parents and the parents of other races now ineligible to citizenship the privileges of naturalization. I am sure this recordHawaiian recordmore than any other factor has con-. vinced Congress that the time has come when the racial restrictions still remaining in our naturalization and immigration laws should be removed as is proposed in this bill. I am strongly in favor of the legislation principally because it will do that. There are relatively few aliens of Oriental and Pacific island origin in Hawaii today. But many of our citizens are their descendants and feel strongly that in the light of the record that has been made by their parents. their demonstrated loyalty to this country. despite the fact that they were aliens. they should be honored by being granted the privileges of naturalization. I do not anticipate that among the small group of aliens still in Hawaii there will be many who will apply for naturalization. once the law is enacted. I think the experience will be much the same as it was when racial restrictions against naturalization of Chinese were removed. Relatively few of the Chinese aliens took advantage of it. But the enactment of this law will bring great change in the attitude of those people and be of enormous influence on the attitude of the people of the Far East toward this country. I am not given to making extravagant statements as to what benefits might come to this country in the improvement of the attitude from the enactment of this legislation. but I do want to say that I think its passage is vitally important from the standpoint of our future in the Pacific because it will remove what has always been a serious source of irritation in our relations with the pecple of the Far East. The value of such a step at this time is indisputable. In 1943. following the appearance before the House of Madame Chiang Kaishek. and in our anxiety to get the support of the Chinese in the fight against the totalitarian powers. the House repealed the racial restrictions in our immigration and naturalization laws against the Chinese. This was followed in 1946 by similar action in regard to the Filipinos and the people of India. The restriction againstthe people of Japan.