There's an anniversary coming up this weekend
that really isn't A cause for celebration.
February 19th, 1942 President Franklin
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066,
which gave the US Army the authority to
remove Japanese American civilians from
military zones along the West Coast.
Those areas that they thought were,
I guess, close to being attacked.
It certainly wasn't the first time in federal
the federal government had forcibly removed
a collection of people from their homeland,
but it was the last.
Yet, the practice of persecuting
a marginalized group.
Lives on today.
This Saturday marks the day of remembrance.
A day to remember this internment of
Japanese Americans during World War Two.
But there's a documentary filmmaker who
wants you to remember something else.
He made a movie called Alternative Facts,
The Lies of Executive Order 9066
and will be showing this weekend in
southern Idaho for the first time.
John Osaki wants you to remember anti
Asian sentiment in the United States.
Began well before December 7th, 1941.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor pushed
public sentiment toward Japanese
Americans to a level never seen before.
10 weeks later, on February
19th, 1942, President Franklin
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.
Authorizing the military to round up
Japanese Americans and remove them
from their homes along the West Coast.
About 120,000 were sent to 10
different internment camps scattered
from Arkansas to California.
More than 9000 were incarcerated in Idaho.
At the Minidoka Relocation Center,
the justification for the incarceration
orders was that Japanese Americans
were committing acts of espionage.
The truth of the matter is,
is that the military, through,
through the help of the Federal
Communications Commission,
realized pretty quickly
that none of that was true.
That truth, or the hiding of it,
is the basis of a documentary by John Osaki,
whose own parents were sent to an
internment camp in Northern California.
His father lived in San Francisco,
a high schooler with a dog.
There was so much hatred directed
towards Japanese following the
bombing of Pearl Harbor that people
considered his dog a *** dog.
So when he was loaded onto a truck,
he literally had to sit there and watch his.
Dog chased that truck for over a mile until
it got too tired and it sat down the middle
of the road and he never saw it again.
Learning about alternative facts tells
the story of the false narrative
that led to this American tragedy.
We had the intelligence
we had the information.
We knew that Japanese Americans were
not a threat to national security but
decided to incarcerate them anyways.
The documentary highlights
not just the ethnic,
but then you see the Japanese
get there and they start.
Creating really productive farms,
but the economic reasons
behind the executive order
end. There is a lot of fear that
Japanese Americans are going to
take over the Central Valley.
They sees this as an opportunity to
essentially take over their land.
Does it shock you? How easily
and how successful it went over
it? It doesn't shock me.
I think what what we've tried to
do with this film is just draw a
straight line to how that playbook
is still very successful today.
Donald Trump defended himself tonight.
Comparing himself to FDR
and it's something that I think we
have to be vigilant about and that.
Real people suffer severe consequences
when they get pulled into this political
agenda for really power, right?
It's really about people acquiring
power in this country and using
marginalized communities to do that.
If you create fear and
demonize an entire group,
we saw what that led to,
and we're starting to head
in a very similar direction.
That's really the lesson of.
The incarceration of Japanese
Americans in World War Two,
and I think we just have to constantly
talk about that and that a lot of our
history in this country is not pretty,
and I think we have to be
willing to confront that,
or we're not going to make
progress in addressing this.
You know this dynamic.
John made a deliberate decision to use
young voices in his documentary to make
sure that they understand the lessons of
history and how they are connected to today.
Now this weekend will be the first time
the film will be screened in Idaho.
As we mentioned, and there are two
chances for you to see it for free.
The first on Sunday at the College
of Southern Idaho and Twin Falls,
the second on Monday at the
Idaho State Museum in Boy C.
However, we just learned this afternoon.
They've reached capacity at that museum.
You can get on a waiting list,
but unless you've already
made reservations for Monday,
you might want to head to
Twin Falls for Sundays.
Showing.
Filmmaker John Osaki is scheduled
to be there for a post screening
discussion about the lessons and
legacy of Executive Order 9066.