Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education Act

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1931 the Japanese American Confinement Education Act that would provide education to elevate understanding about the confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II. In addition to a museum-based educational program, this bill would permanently reauthorize the Japanese American Confinement Sites Preservation Program.

H.R. 1931 will direct the Department of the Interior to establish a program of grants to Japanese American museums to educate about the confinement of Japanese Americans as a means to understand the importance of democratic principles, the use and abuse of power, and to raise awareness about the importance of cultural tolerance toward Japanese Americans.

Two months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order that authorized the relocation of Japanese Americans, most of whom were U.S. citizens, to designated camps nationwide.

Teaching about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII would emphasize the importance of understanding the terrible social injustices that have been inflicted upon racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States.

Highlighting this subject would create a thoughtful, deep awareness about our community, our world, and ourselves.

We must teach that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was wrong, and that racism is wrong.

This sort of hysteria may occur again, and people must do their part to make sure that it never happens again.

Iluminating and confronting the tragedy inflicted upon Japanese Americans during WWII can help shape the citizens who will lead us into a more socially aware future.

Keeping the memories of incarceration alive also gives Japanese Americans the ability and responsibility to speak out when other groups are unfairly targeted on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or other identity.

My former colleague Congressman Norman Mineta, who represented the constituents of California's 13th and 15th Congressional districts, is a survivor of the Heart Mountain internment camp near Cody, Wyoming.

In his remarks during a House debate on the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, he exclaimed that he, and all the other prisoners, ``lost [their] most basic human rights. [Their] own government had branded [them] with the unwarranted stigma of disloyalty which clings to [them] still to this day.''

Secretary Mineta helped lead the efforts to pass the Civil Liberties Act, which offered a formal apology from the United States Government for its policies toward Japanese Americans and paid each of the 80,000 living survivors $20,000 in compensation.

His tenacity and faith led him to become a member of Congress for 20 years, Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, and Secretary of Transportation under President George W. Bush.

It is our duty as Members of Congress to honor and commemorate Secretary Mineta, and all other survivors of this unjust racial attack, by passing this bill and educating everyone on these atrocities to ensure nothing like this will ever happen again.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1931) to provide competitive grants for the promotion of Japanese American confinement education as a means to understand the importance of democratic principles, use and abuse of power, and to raise awareness about the importance of cultural tolerance toward Japanese Americans, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measure under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 1931, the Japanese American Confinement Education Act, introduced by my colleague, Representative Doris Matsui.

In 2006, Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program for the preservation and interpretation of U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

These grants are awarded through a competitive process to entities working to preserve historic Japanese American incarceration sites. They require a 2:1 Federal to non-Federal match.

H.R. 1931 would authorize increased and much-needed funding for the program within the National Park Service, ensuring that the lessons and history of the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans is not forgotten, and that we continue to learn from the transgression of the past.

The bill will also establish a new competitive grant within the program that would support nonprofits to create and share educational materials about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

I congratulate my colleague, Representative Matsui, for championing this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case).

Mr. Speaker, I urge approval of H.R. 1931. The sponsor of the legislation, Representative Matsui, and also Representative Case have made, I think, the profound argument for the legislation and its support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, the Japanese American Confinement Education Act. This bill builds upon one of my earliest achievements, reauthorizing the Japanese American Confinement Sites program established in 2006.

The Japanese American story is an important one. It needs to be told and retold. It is a story that cannot afford to be lost in time.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the authorization of Executive Order 9066. Yet, too many Americans do not know the history of the Japanese American community.

These Americans were stripped from their homes and sent to remote camps. Families were put behind barbed wire and guarded by armed soldiers.

Today, I speak to you on the floor of the people's House as a Member of this esteemed Chamber. Yet, my first 3 months of life were part of that pained experience. My parents were among those who lived in these appalling conditions, incarcerated solely because of their ancestry. This also included many people from the Sacramento region, including my late husband, Congressman Bob Matsui, who was only 6 months old when he was sent to one of these camps.

Those of us in the Japanese American community know all too well if we do not learn from history, we risk the chance of it repeating. That is why we must continue to lift up these stories. That is why we must continue to listen to those who came before us and teach this history to our future generations. These are the voices that my bill seeks to preserve.

There are still some people who think that by walling off our country from the less fortunate, that we will somehow make ourselves safer; that by making people feel like the other, that we will be more secure.

But that is not who the American people are. We have this wonderfully diverse Nation and it is together that we stand the strongest.

The story of Japanese Americans is something that Bob and I felt a responsibility to preserve; the history of individuals and families in the Japanese American community. And really, it is truly an American story of perseverance, persistence, and the love of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on educating our public about this important, painful piece of American history.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1931 extends the authorization of the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program and establishes a new competitive grant program to award grants to Japanese American organizations to create and disseminate educational materials about the history of Japanese American confinement during World War II.

In 2006, Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites, or JACS grant program to preserve and interpret U.S. Confinement Sites during World War II. However, the program will soon run up against the end of its authorization cap.

The program has supported valuable projects across the country, including at least 12 in my home State of Arkansas, where important projects have been funded at my alma mater, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, as well as Arkansas State University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Central Arkansas, and the Central Arkansas Library System, and the McGehee Industrial Foundation.

These projects include archiving, creating educational exhibits, hosting workshops and lectures, preserving cemeteries, and recording oral histories.

I appreciate Representative Matsui's work on this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support extending the program.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage passage of this bill.

I have friends back in Arkansas who, like Representative Matsui, at a young age, were in some of these internment camps, and they are great Americans, very patriotic. We owe it to them to recognize what happened and to support this program.

Mr. Speaker, I, again, urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1931, the Japanese American Confinement Education Act, as well as H.R. 6434, the Japanese American World War II History Network Act, which we will consider later today.

I am honored and humbled to cosponsor these measures, and I sincerely thank my colleagues from California, Representatives Matsui and Obernolte, for their work in crafting both pieces of legislation to ensure that the inexcusable injustices faced by our Nation's Japanese American community during World War II are never forgotten.

The memory of World War II evokes one of the darkest periods of our history as a country, the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Over the course of the war, our Federal Government forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 Japanese Americans, the majority of whom were U.S. citizens, in barbed wire enclosed camps.

H.R. 1931 and H.R. 6434 both strengthen our ability, if not necessity, to tell what happened in these confinement sites, and to ensure that future generations learned what happened so it never occurs again.

I urge my colleagues to honor and remember the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at still-infamous sites like Manzanar, Tule Lake, where my wife's uncle and aunt, simple truck farmers from Sacramento, were interned, Heart Mountain, and the Honouliuli Internment Camp in Honolulu by voting ``yes'' on both H.R. 1931 and H.R. 6434.