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California Officially Apologizes For World War II Japanese-American Internment

February 20, 2020 / 8:19 AM PST / KCAL News

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — California officially apologized Thursday for the internment of more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into World War II, President Roosevelt forced more than 120,000 Japanese men, women and children in the U.S. to leave their homes and move into internment camps across the West.

INDEPENDENCE, CA - DECEMBER 09: A monument honoring the dead stands in the cemetery at Manzanar National Historic Site on December 9, 2015 near Independence, California. Recent presidential campaign rhetoric against Muslims in the wake of terror attacks has drawn comparisons to World War II era incarceration of Japanese Americans. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten internment camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were incarcerated from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Two of the 10 internment camps – Tule Lake and Manzanar -- were in California. The California Legislature passed HR-77, which was introduced by Torrance Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, on Thursday, when it was read aloud.

"The apology is welcomed, but it's long overdue. For so long, the California Legislature passed discriminatory legislation that hindered the social mobility of Japanese Americans in the early 20th Century," said Kristen Hayashi, curator of L.A.'s Japanese American National Museum.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed Feb. 19 to be a state Day of Remembrance, marking the day President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing the evacuation and internment of American citizens of Japanese descent.

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