Sunday, February 19, marked the 70th anniversary of the Japanese Internment Camps. In honor of the many Japanese Americans affected, the Japanese American National Museum partnered with Ancestry.com to start the Remembrance Project to ensure these Americans were not forgotten.
It’s important for Americans to remember this part of their history, George Takei tells The Washington Post.
I’m astounded by the number of people — particularly east of the Rockies — who say to me, aghast, ‘I had no idea such a thing had happened in the United States.’
The museum, he said, has two important missions: to pay tribute to those who were placed in the camps and to learn a lesson from that to never let something like it happen again.
“I was a child, five years old to eight years old, when I was incarcerated. I had many many discussions with my father,” Takei said. Takei’s father told him that the strength and the weakness of American democracy is that it’s a true people’s democracy. “It’s as fallible as people are,” the actor said. “And fallible people can be swept up by hysteria.”
Take a look at the video below and be sure to visit the The Rememberance Project and Ancestry.com's exclusive content, available for free until Feb. 23.
Jessie Choi is the advertising assistant at Sojourners.
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