A Sad Anniversary

Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of the absurd Executive Order 9066 authorizing the imprisonment of  more than 100,000 thousands Americans in desert detention camps, guilty of nothing other than being of Japanese descent.

As a college student, I’d drive past the Manzanar relocation center in the high Mojave Desert each time I went home.  Each time, it made me ashamed.  Even the thought of it still makes me sick today.  I know people who were sent there and I’ve heard their stories.  My grandparents also had neighbors sent there who, effectively, lost everything.

One would think the Constitution stood for something, but it sure didn’t then.  Indeed, the Constitution utterly failed to protect these people.  Each branch of government knowingly refused to honor and uphold basic constitutional liberties.  I suppose it just goes to show that we must never take constitutional privileges for granted nor tolerate the abridgement of those rights by those cloaking themselves in “national security.”