President Joe Biden released a statement on Sunday for the Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration. It's a day to commemorate the victims who were put into camps during World War II as a result of Executive Order 9066. Just as he did last year, Biden called these internment camps "one of the most shameful chapters in our nation's history." He made all the usual condemnations that presidents and leaders have been making for years. He made the same mistakes and omissions, too.
While many know of the internment of the Japanese, those of German and Italian descent — people from countries that, unlike Japan, did not attack U.S. soil before the war — rarely get acknowledged. Biden was no different and didn't mention any of the thousands of Italians, Germans, and other people of European descent who were placed into internment camps on Feb. 19, 1942.
"When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, eighty-one years ago today, it ushered in one of the most shameful periods in American history. The wrongful incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent tore families apart. Men, women, and children were forced to abandon their homes, their jobs, their communities, their businesses, and their way of life," Biden's statement read. "They were sent to inhumane concentration camps simply because of their heritage. And in a tragic miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court upheld these immoral and unconstitutional policies."
Like much of what Biden says, his statement about these camps was less than truthful. It wasn't "simply because of their heritage" that Japanese people were interned. It was a precautionary move because the Empire of Japan attacked the United States, and the government was concerned about another one. It was the same reason thousands of people of Italian and German heritage in the country suffered the same fate. Rightly or wrongly, security, not racism, was the impetus for Executive Order 9066.
In the early months of 1942, at least 600,000 Italians and Italian Americans, some legal residents or even U.S. citizens, were classified as "enemy aliens." About 1,600 Italian citizens were placed into internment camps in Missoula, Montana, and Ellis Island. Furthermore, given the real security concerns of attacks on the coast, close to 10,000 Italian Americans were forced to relocate from their homes on the West Coast and move inland.
Just like the Japanese, Italians and Italian Americans living in the United States had their civil liberties crushed in the name of threat mitigation. As Salvatore LaGumina described in In Search of Heroes: Italian Americans in World War II, Italians were viewed as "a potentially subversive population in the United States."
And it wasn't just Italians. Approximately 11,000 people of German ancestry were arrested and put into camps. Four camps were used to hold Germans and were known as Department of Justice camps. The two main ones were in Georgia and California. They, too, were considered enemy aliens and, as a result, had their homes and possessions confiscated by the government.
This was the second war that people of European heritage had to endure such camps, unlike the Japanese. During World War I, Italians, Germans, Romanians, Bulgarians, and other people of European origin were placed into camps because they were deemed national security risks. These victims from World War I established the precedent to use camps during World War II.
Yet, victims of European heritage from World War I or World War II are rarely, if ever, acknowledged. This is done on purpose. If Biden, or any Democrat, mentioned the "white people" who the government interned, it would destroy the "U.S. is a racist country that is hostile to anyone who isn't white" narrative.
All of these camps were immoral, unjust, and wrong. Every victim deserves a yearly apology. But, instead of being honest, Biden doubled down on the hyperbolic, divisive, and agenda-driven narrative.
"The incarceration of Japanese Americans reminds us what happens when racism, fear, and xenophobia go unchecked," Biden's statement read.
However, the alleged "racism, fear, and xenophobia" should apply to all people in camps. If internment was wrong for one group, it was wrong for all groups. All victims of 9066, and those people of European descent incarcerated during World War I, deserve acknowledgment, not just the ethnic groups that Biden and Democrats want to exploit.