America must learn from its mistakes

This week marked the 74^th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that launched America into World War II. Our country responded both valiantly and shamefully, determined to fight for our most cherished values—freedom and liberty—while also stripping those same rights from some of our own citizens and their families based solely on their race. 

History classes around the country this week may have included lessons about Pearl Harbor. Some of those classes—but far too few, as I know well—may have also taught how that event changed the lives of my father Fred and the other 120,000 Japanese Americans who, by virtue of their ancestry, were presumed suspicious and ordered en masse into internment camps during the war. No act of treason or espionage was ever found to have been committed by any of these individuals.

{mosads}The exploitation of fears about national security that our national leaders used then to justify the exclusion of an ethnic group has alarming parallels today. Recent events and responding political statements have intensified the pervasive post-9/11 animus toward Muslims in this country. Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn country have faced resistance against resettlement in the United States. Presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested a ban on Muslims from entering the United States and a system of registering Muslims who already reside in the country. And most recently, the mass shooting in San Bernardino has reignited hateful backlash against Muslim Americans. 

Much how we would not blame the Christian community for the Colorado Planned Parenthood mass shooting, blame cannot be assigned to the entire Muslim American community for the shooting in San Bernardino. These fear-mongering responses that cast aspersions on entire communities are not new, and history has proven they are not only ineffective, but also un-American means of protecting our national interests. 

In 1882, Chinese immigrants were the first and only group to ever be specifically excluded from the United States on the basis of their race. The Chinese Exclusion Act imposed severe restrictions on immigration, naturalization and basic freedoms. In 2012, Congress finally passed a resolution formally apologizing for this ugly law. 

Since World War II, government records have revealed that the U.S. Census Bureau had been sharing names and addresses of Japanese Americans with the Secret Service to assist in the roundup of individuals for internment and other surveillance efforts. A law that had protected the confidentiality of census data was temporarily repealed during this time. In the ensuing decades—and despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in my father’s case, Korematsu v. United States, still yet to be overturned—the U.S. government has admitted its grave misconduct in the treatment of Japanese Americans. 

The past is evidence of the perils of allowing fear and prejudice, rather than reason, to rule the day. We know better than to impute or presume acts of terror by extreme individuals to entire populations. As Americans, we have an obligation to not only learn our history, but to learn from it.

Korematsu is founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute.