Speech #990028383

The new bill. S. 1053. would provide a long overdue remedy for what has become known as one of Americas worst wartime mistakes: The incarceration in detention camps of some 120.000 Americans and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry from the west coast. About 80 percent of these evacuees were nativeborn Americans and the remaining 20 percent were their parentsfirst generation immigrants who were longtime legal residents of the United States prohibited by the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924 from becoming naturalized American citizens. In the summer and early fall of 1942. long after the threat of an enemy Invasion of the west coast had faded. they were summarily removed from their homes by U.S. Army troops attached to the Western Defense Command and sent to isolated detention camps. surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards. in the interior parts of this country.