Newsletter

March 2006
Op Ed: Internment Again?
Seeyuen Lee, Intern Class of 2000

A December story in U.S. News & World Report reported that, over the last several years, the FBI has secretly monitored mosques and other Muslim-owned businesses and homes for radiation without court approval. Many concerns have surfaced, particularly those that suggest that the FBI’s actions are major violations of the fundamental constitutional rights of Americans. The federal government defends its actions, saying that radiation was measured from a short distance away, in areas considered to be public property, and would not violate constitutional rights.

Reflecting on the history of persecution of Asian Americans in the U.S., one can’t help but think of the resemblance to Japanese internment during World War II. Japanese internment and surveillance of Muslims are similar in many ways, and federal acknowledgment of wrongdoing in the former suggests that perhaps the government is not so correct in its current actions. In 1983, a nonpartisan Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians wrote of President Roosevelt’s executive order that allowed detainment of civilians based on race:

“[it] was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions that followed from it-exclusion, detention, the ending of detention and the ending of exclusion-were not founded upon military considerations. The broad historical causes that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance about Americans of Japanese descent contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. A grave personal injustice was done to the American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II.”

Substitute Japanese with Muslim, and Japan with Arab world, and we are essentially letting history repeat itself.

Not only is there strong evidence that the government action is inherently illegal, it is simply a racist policy. Asian Americans of all nationalities should be horrified that this is being allowed to happen. A new concern for Chinese-Americans: in Los Angeles last November, three naturalized U.S. citizens from Taiwan were arrested for espionage, but only charged with “failing to register as foreign agents,” when the FBI failed to make a case for more serious charges.

We as Chinese-Americans need to be aware that history is apt to repeat itself. Our civil liberties continue to be at risk as many negative stereotypes of Chinese people persist. Participation in political associations is highly important in this regard. At a personal level, it provides us a common medium from which we initiate dialogue among ourselves and to which we as individuals contribute as best we know how. In the larger scale of the political arena, participation in political associations such as CAPA is key in demonstrating that the hundreds of members are all behind a common goal. There is strength in numbers that our elected officials cannot deny. This is a tool many minority groups have used and we should as well. Only by being vigilant, by joining together as a unified group can we stand up for our rights.

Seeyuen Lee was an intern for CAPA in the summer of 2000. She graduated in 2005 from Wellesley College and is currently studying at the Boston University School of Public Health. She has plans to go to law school, medical school, and business school before finding a job in hopes of never having to do any real work.