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“Let Me See Your Papers,
Please!”
By William Finucane
In 1988, President
Ronald Reagan signed a bill apologizing to American Japanese for taking many of
them into custody and imprisoning them during the course of World War II. The
’88 legislation declared: Government actions in 1942 were triggered by "race
prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
Executive Order
9066 was issued Feb. 19, 1942, by President Franklin Roosevelt, putting some
110,000 Japanese-Americans in 10 “relocation centers” in California, Idaho,
Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Arkansas and Colorado. FDR committed a “failure of
political leadership,” according to the 1988 Congress, conveniently forgetting
that many in Congress at the advent of WWII either actively or tacitly supported
FDR’s action, as did the Supreme Court.
It’s also largely
forgotten that FDR’s action was taken as a result of a hue and cry from a large
segment of the public in California, which was then taken up by its Senators and
Representatives; they were panicked that the Imperial Japanese forces that
attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, would soon be arriving
on California’s shore, getting help from a Fifth Column of Japanese-American
residents.
The despicable
internment of Japanese-Americans, without even a hearing, still resonates as one
of the blackest marks in American history, and all the more so because no such
political hue and cry attached itself to German-Americans. That fact is made
darker by the reality that within German-American ranks there were active Bund
organizations that marched on American streets with brown shirts, storm trooper
boots and Nazi flags and did in fact hold secret meetings, some even making
contact with German operatives. There is no indication that Japanese-Americans
ever acted in a similar manner or in any fashion tried to emulate the
militaristic Japanese Empire.
Clearly the
difference was in appearance. Germans were white and looked like most other
white Americans; Japanese did not. History ultimately called the internment
process an egregious error, and some Americans have recognized it for what it
truly was: racism.
Arizona is
currently making the same mistake. Now the state of Arizona has passed a law
letting lawmen stop and question anybody who might appear not to be an American
citizen. Just how that determination is made is, of course, absolutely
impossible, unless skin color and a Hispanic appearance are brought into play.
Of course the
objective is to stop illegal entry into the United States from Mexico. This is
a long standing and ever hotter political issue as mid-term elections near.
Arizona has a
long, unenforceable border with Mexico. Illegal aliens and drug runners can get
across into America easily. To stop the traffic, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer
signed the legislation, blaming Congress and of course the Democrats and Pres.
Barack Obama for not solving the immigration problem. Again, conveniently
forgetting that Republican majorities controlled Congress from 1995 to 2008, and
since the Democrats then took over Congress the GOP has mightily struggled to
prevent any solution to any national problem.
Republicans are
now trying to make this a wedge issue, hoping the Democrats will be forced to
take actions that can be attacked no matter what; ‘damned if they do, and damned
if they don’t.’ To accomplish this political conundrum, Arizona has taken a
large step toward fear and away from the principles of the nation, borrowing
from California’s WWII example, but without even the questionable rationale of
fear that they could be militarily attacked.
Fear and hatred
drives this new Arizona law. It offers a neat way of catching all possible drug
dealers and illegal aliens by making every Hispanic person in Arizona a suspect:
no identification papers, off to custody. Lots of Latinos live in Arizona
legally. Many speak Spanish, but thousands of citizens in Arizona of various
heritages also speak Spanish. Well, then, how will the police officer to tell if
the person is illegally in the United States. How?
The answer is that
there is no way to tell if a citizen is a danger to the community or a criminal
or simply an illegal just by looking at her or him. Whether a Japanese-American
or a Mexican-American, there is no hint of that individual’s character simply
because of how the person looks. Realistically, it will be the police officer
who makes the subjective judgment.
Some Americans are
now seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional. Others would like to see
a version of the new Arizona law enacted in their own states. But while all of
this adds up to a battle across the nation and in Washington, Arizona’s new law
must be condemned.
If the Supreme
Court chooses to uphold it – with four members of the court clearly committed to
a right-wing agenda, that is a possibility – Pres. Obama and Congress will have
to write a newer law to supplant it. Republicans are actually using the George
W. Bush trick here: whip up as much fear and anger as possible, as he did after
the Sept. l1, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Bush fanned the
flames of that terrorist act and worked the situation to give himself power to
wage war in any way he desired or felt necessary to free the world of
terrorists. He trampled citizens’ rights, tortured suspects, told the other
nations they were with America or were automatically enemies, bypassed Congress
altogether by amending legislation with “signing statements” that overrode House
of Representatives and Senate bills, ordered television and other media not to
show coffins of American soldiers, tried to have his own lawyer named to the
Supreme Court and much more; that is just a brief synopsis of Bush’s
systematical decomposing the United States Constitution. His eight years in
office were dangerous for America.
That danger is
illustrated again in the Arizona case.
To win the war
against illegal immigrants and drug traffickers, Arizona has called for a
Bush-style weapon: ‘Let me see your papers, please!’
This is
dictatorial power. Arrest anyone. Imprison anyone. It’s certainly a lot easier
than gathering evidence, such as following a person until good cause is
established, or piecing together evidence, building a case and taking it to
court. But there are strange drawbacks: Arizona’s police state approach removes
from America the very thing that immigrants seek; that is, a land with a
government that is not trying to punish people for wanting to better themselves.
Such hopes, upon which the American nation was built, are now being stifled in
Arizona.
Surely way can be
found to solve the problems of illegal immigration, but this Arizona obscenity
cannot be part of any corrective plan.
May, 2010
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