Takano, the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he returned home in Southern California last Fourth of July to stories that made him draw direct parallels to a chapter of U.S. history when his family members were labeled security threats and incarcerated.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Takano said one constituent described starting to carry a passport as proof of the right to be in the country after immigration patrols swept through communities. Takano said his own family history made those accounts resonate with what he called the “similarity of circumstance” between his parents’ childhood treatment and what he described as today’s anti-immigrant detentions.
Takano said he was comparing the present with World War II detention because both involved people he described as being treated as “enemy aliens” on grounds that the government framed as national security. He told AP: “I do feel like there’s a similarity of circumstance of my own 2-year-old father and my 1-year-old mother being labeled as enemy aliens and they’re considered a danger to national security,” and he added: “Similar arguments have been made by this administration — that immigrants pose a grave danger to our country and it’s for the security of our country that we’re doing this.”
He said both his father and mother were sent as children to incarceration camps after the U.S. entered the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Takano said his father, William, was 2 years old when his family was sent in 1942 to the incarceration camp at Tule Lake in California, and that his mother, Nancy Tsugiye Sakamoto—who was born in California to American-born parents—was a year old when she was relocated to the detention facility at Heart Mountain in Wyoming.
Takano, a former high school history teacher who entered Congress in 2012, said he later came to understand the family stories in Southern California. He described his grandparents as Isao Takano, who arrived in the U.S. from Hiroshima, and Kazue Takahashi, a U.S.-born citizen, who built a business in Bellevue, Washington, growing tomatoes, strawberries and chrysanthemums for sale in Seattle.
In the interview, Takano also tied his family’s World War II experience to a broader national debate about what he said the government is doing now. The AP account described the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement as intensifying after this year’s deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, which prompted protests in Minneapolis, and it said the White House had changed leadership at the Department of Homeland Security as it reframes its approach.
Takano said he sees Congress’s past response to Japanese American incarceration as a guide for what he called the country’s responsibility today. He said the 1988 Civil Liberties Act sought to apologize for the “grave injustice” and provide $20,000 to each person detained, and that President Ronald Reagan signed the law.
Takano said his parents received a letter of apology from the federal government and a payment. He also said talks are underway among some in Congress for a similar redress for people affected by today’s immigration enforcement operations, describing harms that he said include car windows smashed, homes raided, and livelihoods disrupted.
In closing, Takano said he believes the country did come to recognize its earlier mistake and that people living through the current moment can respond the same way. He told AP: “Remarkably the country did come to realize the mistake,” adding, “I believe we’re living through one of those eras of mistakes and I believe we can come out of this moment stronger.”