#internment

Rick just offered his help to Michonne as she moved a dead body.

Michonne: "No. Do your thing."

Who remembers what Chris Rock said it means when a man offers you help? Hehehehehe 😏😉

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal of anyone deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast.

Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens—were rounded up and sent to remote prison camps under armed guard.

They lost homes, jobs, and businesses overnight.

Families were forced to live in barracks surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers.

The U.S. government later admitted this was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan formally apologized on behalf of the government through the Civil Liberties Act, offering limited reparations to surviving internees.

🔹 How It Connects to Today

The parallel I am drawing—comparing it to modern immigration detention or policies under Trump—is very relevant.

During the Trump administration, immigration enforcement expanded sharply, with family separations, mass ICE raids, and detention centers holding migrants (including children) in harsh, prison-like conditions.

Many historians and civil rights groups—including the Japanese American Citizens League—explicitly warned that these were echoes of Japanese incarceration:

Targeting people based on ethnicity or national origin.

Using “national security” or “border security” as justification.

Mass detention without individualized due process.

Image Caption: Oakland, California, April 1942. Part of family unit of Japanese ancestry leave Wartime Civil Control Administration station on afternoon of evacuation, under Civilian Exclusion Order Number 28. Social worker directs these evacuees to the waiting bus.

"On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, stripping people of Japanese descent of their civil rights.  That order and the subsequent actions carried out by the Federal Government represent one of the most shameful chapters in our Nation’s history.  On this Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II, we acknowledge the unjust incarceration of some 120,000 Japanese Americans, approximately two-thirds of whom were born in the United States." — President Biden, 2022

Image Caption: Los Angeles, California, April 1942. Mr. and Mrs. K. Iseri have closed their drugstore in preparation for the forthcoming evacuation from their "Little Tokyo" in Los Angeles.

The State Library's California Civil Liberties Public Education Grants are part of our efforts to shine a light on this dark time in our history. The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program funds projects which seek to spread awareness of civil liberties injustices of all types — including, but not limited to, the internment of Japanese Americans during Word War II. 

Image Caption: Oakland, California. Following evacuation orders, this store, at 13th and Franklin Streets, was closed. The owner, a University of California graduate of Japanese descent, placed the "I AM AN AMERICAN" sign on the store front on Dec. 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. 

The deadline for grant applications is April 14, 2023. To learn more, and to submit an application, please visit the Civil Liberties Program page at https://www.library.ca.gov/grants/civil-liberties/.

Image Caption: Document from “Evacuee Property Department” with handwritten numbers showing the number of evacuees, vehicles, and property under Civilian Exclusion Order Number 23 (Vacaville).  

1690 – Siege of Limerick commences when William of Orange encamps just outside the walls of the old city, with an army of about 26,000; the Irish defenders were similar in number though not nearly as well armed. 1850 – Irish Tenant League is founded. 1878 – Birth of architect and furniture designer, Eileen Gray, in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. She was a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture.…