Doris Matsui: “64 years ago, on February 19, 1942, tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and…”

“64 years ago, on February 19, 1942, tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and communities in one of the great suspensions of liberty in our Nation's history. We recall the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 as a Day of Remembrance. This was the day the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans and legal residents along the West Coast were suspended and they were incarcerated during World War II. Families and communities were uprooted from the life they had known. This memory is actually quite bittersweet for me and my family. My grandparents and parents were uprooted from their communities, their lives, their homes, their businesses, despite the fact that they were American citizens. My parents actually met and married at the Poston Internment Camp, my birthplace. In fact, my father says that that was probably the only good thing that came out of that camp. Growing up, my parents protected me from the experience they went through of having the loyalty they held for this Nation being questioned. And as I was growing up, my parents made a concerted effort to teach me to believe in this country and love this country despite what it did to them. I shared this sense of patriotism with my husband.…”