SAN DIEGO — The San Diego City Council rescinded Tuesday a resolution it had passed 80 years ago in support of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II.
Council members called the camps and the council’s 1942 resolution supporting them racist, unjust and a form of hate. In addition to rescinding the 1942 resolution, the council approved an apology to Japanese Americans for the impact of the camps.
“It is incredibly important that we identify the racist acts of the past and injustices of the past and address them head-on,” Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said. “We can acknowledge the wrong that the city committed.”
Leaders of the local Japanese American community praised the council’s move, noting how people sent to the camps lost their property, their opportunities for education and their dignity.
During World War II, more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry — regarded as a threat to national security because of their ethnicity — were forcibly relocated to 10 prison camps in the western U.S. and Arkansas. The Supreme Court in 1944 upheld the legality of their incarceration in a long-condemned decision it finally repudiated in 2018.
Among those imprisoned were more than 1,900 San Diego County residents of Japanese descent.
Elo-Rivera said the goal of Tuesday’s actions is helping the Japanese American community heal and preventing authorities from committing such injustices again.
“This isn’t simply a matter of looking backwards, but also hopefully recognizing how quickly political ploys can turn into real harm and how important it is that we take a stand against that,” he said.
The council’s actions were requested by the San Diego chapter of the Japanese American Historical Society.
Kay Ochi, the society’s president, said the prison camps and the council’s resolution supporting them reflected the racism, prejudice and fear of the time. Her parents, U.S. citizens born in 1920, were incarcerated from 1942 to 1945 in Arizona.
“The trauma of that racist act, the shame that it brought upon the Japanese American community to be targeted as spies, was deep and painful,” she said. “You are re-affirming your commitment — the city’s commitment — to the promises of the Constitution.”
Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe said the council’s move was an obligation.
“I do think it’s our duty to use our platforms to speak out against hate in any form,” she said.
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