Bittersweet Moment for Pasadena Councilman as State Assembly Expected to Apologize for World War II Imprisonment of Japanese Americans

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, Councilman Gene Masuda’s parents, Sam and Alice, were among thousands of Japanese Americans rounded up and held in “relocation centers” until the war ended.

One of those hurriedly constructed camps was at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia. There, the couple was placed in a horse stall before eventually being separated, with Masuda’s father being sent to another relocation camp, Manzanar, in Owens Valley, and his mother, pregnant at the time with Gene’s older brother, interned at Tule Lake.

“It was something that my parents didn’t really talk about,” said Masuda in an interview shortly after he was elected in 2011.

“They lost time. They could never get it back. They had to pack up their things, go to Santa Anita and live in horse stalls, and then they had to wait until they were shipped out. Many Japanese Americans lost everything, including their dignity and property,” Masuda said.

But the state legislature could be on the verge of owning up to the atrocities.

The state Assembly is scheduled to vote on a bill today that could lead to an apology from state lawmakers to Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps during World War II.

The bill by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, (D-Torrance), catalogs a history of California state officials working to identify and remove Japanese Americans from their communities, from forbidding Japanese citizens from owning property to dismissing public employees of Japanese descent from their jobs.

In 1982, state lawmakers passed a bill providing compensation to state employees who lost their jobs when they were interred.

“It has been 78 years since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. Unfortunately, the same xenophobia and hysteria that led to this shameful chapter in our nation’s history continues to manifest in many of the Trump administration’s policies today. That is why now, more than ever, we must speak up in the face of injustice and ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past,” Muratsuchi said.

After reuniting following the war, Masuda’s parents settled in Boyle Heights, where Gene grew up.

The experience, as passed down over the years, “certainly grounds me,” said Masuda. “It’s a constant reminder that you don’t take things for granted and you learn to respect other people.”

Masuda also told KABC-TV that “this is the right thing to do, but my parents and my grandparents generation, they’re not here any longer, so they don’t get to, I would say, enjoy, but to appreciate this apology.”

Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-Pasadena) praised lawmakers for the bill.

“Over three decades ago, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 to formally apologize and provide redress to Japanese Americans who were racially targeted and stripped of their civil liberties, and I am glad that my home state of California is passing legislation this week to likewise acknowledge its historical mistreatment of Japanese Americans,” Chu said. “As we observe this Day of Remembrance, let us recommit ourselves to safeguarding the civil rights of all Americans so that what happened to Japanese Americans will never happen again.”