House votes to bolster efforts to educate public about Japanese American internment camps

The House passed legislation on Wednesday to bolster the preservation of Japanese American internment historical sites during World War II as part of efforts to promote education about their imprisonment after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The 406-16 vote further came on the one-year anniversary of the shooting spree at three spas in Atlanta that resulted in the deaths of six Asian-American women. All of the votes in opposition were from Republicans.

Passage further comes shortly after the 80-year anniversary in February 1942 when then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that led to about 120,000 people of Japanese descent being forced to live in detention camps until the end of World War II.

“Many of the U.S. government’s activities during World War II were done in secrecy and were not accurately represented to the public in the years after the war,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), whose state was home to two Japanese-American internment camps.

“Designating this network will support education and awareness of the people, places, and events that were associated with the wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans,” Grijalva added.

The bill would establish a network within the National Park Service to interconnect sites related to the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as a way to promote tourism and education about that period in American history.

In addition, the House passed a separate bill by voice vote on Tuesday that would permanently authorize another program dedicated to preserving the confinement sites and establish a new five-year grant program to increase education about the internment of Japanese Americans.

The issue is personal for Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), the author of that measure. She was born in one of the internment camps. So was her late husband, former Rep. Bob Matsui (D-Calif.).

“My parents were among those who lived in these appalling conditions, incarcerated solely because of their ancestry,” Matsui said.

“Those of us in the Japanese American community know all too well if we do not learn from history, we risk the chance of it repeating. That is why we must continue to lift up these stories. That is why we must continue to listen to those who came before us and teach this history to our future generations,” she said.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans have spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was first identified in China. More than 10,300 incidents against Asian Americans have been reported since March 2020 and September 2021, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.

Lawmakers marking the anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings said it was just one example of violence in the past two years targeting Asian Americans.

“The murders of 8 people, including 6 Asian women, 1 year ago today shocked our nation awake to the problem of anti-Asian violence. I continue to mourn those victims and the over 11,000 others. We must unite to reject bigotry & xenophobia in order to #StopAsianHate,” tweeted Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus chairwoman.