We are the sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends of Americans of Japanese ancestry who, during World War II, were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in camps around the country, an act that deprived our family members of their freedom, rights, privacy, property, dignity and, in many cases, their health.
Some of us were children at the time, and we watched what the incarceration of our families and 120,000 Japanese Americans did to an entire community. We live with its effects every day.
This experience is why we are so particularly aggrieved by the Trump administration’s recent decision to use a former site where Japanese Americans were imprisoned without due process as a detention center for innocent Latin American children, who have been separated from their families.