California schools will link WWII internment camps to current anti-immigrant actions

DOROTHEA LANGE

The famous photographer was commissioned by the U.S. government to chronicle the internment camps.

ASAM NEWS

CALIFORNIA GOV. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would draw connections for students and the public between today’s political climate and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The SF Chronicle reports AB 491 will fund educational programs that link current attacks on civil rights and the incarceration camps.

It is an obvious swipe at President Trump from the Democratically controlled California legislature.

“When the Trump administration is infringing on the rights of Californians, we’re not going to be afraid to challenge that, whether that’s through legislation or, as the attorney general (Xavier Becerra) is doing, through the courts,” Kevin Liao, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County), said to the San Francisco Chronicle.

$3 million has been funded over the next three years for projects.

Japanese Americans since 9/11 have been outspoken in support of Muslim communities under attack.

Just two weeks ago, children of Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, and Fred Korematsu filed a brief in court opposing the Muslim American travel ban.

Hirabayashi, Yasui and Korematsu risked their livelihoods during World War II to oppose the incarceration orders back then, reported Rafu Shimpo.

“Rather than repeat the injustices of the past,” states the brief, the court “should heed the lessons of Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui: Blind deference to the Executive Branch … is incompatible with the protection of fundamental freedoms.”

The brief was filed before President Trump announced a new travel ban designed to get around the objections of the court, but which critics say is the same old same old.

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