Political Quotes

“May 6, 2017, marks a 75-year-old moral stain on Oregon's history. On this day in 1942, the city of Portland was declared free of all Japanese Americans. As part of the Nation's response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. In doing so, the President authorized the removal of anybody deemed ``threatening.'' The President's action was based in fear and prejudice rather than any actual threat, and many Japanese Americans paid the price as innocent people were separated from their families and traumatized. The United States would ultimately incarcerate more than 120,000 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents of Japanese ancestry. The Federal Government deemed Japanese Americans who lived on the west coast a ``threat,'' putting my State of Oregon on the frontlines of this injustice. Forced out of their homes and businesses, many of Oregon's Japanese American families moved into the animal stalls of what was then the Pacific International Livestock and Exposition Center in north Portland. Eventually, a total of 3,700 men, women, and children from Oregon and parts of Washington were held at the center. These families were later sent off with thousands of other Japanese Americans to quickly erected camps across the United States. Despite the anti-Japanese fever burning across the United States, thousands of Japanese Americans were serving valiantly on the battlefields of Europe.…”