SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California legislators are expected to pass a resolution condemning the state’s role in the U.S. government’s internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order in 1942 led to incarcerations at 10 camps, two in California.
The Democratic assemblyman who introduced the resolution said the state would be apologizing for a time when "California led the racist anti-Japanese American movement.”
The measure has bipartisan support, a rarity in the Legislature.
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On Tuesday, Les Ouchida was holding a photo of himself and his siblings taken in 1943 at the internment camp his family was moved to. He was at the permanent exhibit titled "UpRoot
ed Japanese Americans in World War II" at the California Museum in Sacramento.
Ochida is a docent for the exhibit. His family was forced to move in 1942 from their home near Sacramento to a camp in Jerome, Arkansas.
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrence has introduced the resolution to apologize for California's role in carrying out the federal government's internment of Japanese-Americans.
A similar resolution will be brought up before the state Senate by Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento.