APAs call for his removal from subcommittee
By May Chow and Sam Chu Lin | AsianWeek
Rep. Howard Coble never meant to offend Japanese and Arab Americans during a radio interview regarding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the consequences of this policy in today’s society, according to a letter Coble personally wrote to three Asian Pacific American house representatives.
Last Tuesday, the Republican congress member — who heads the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security — said on Greensboro, N.C. radio station, WKZL FM, that he agreed with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Coble made his remarks after a listener called in and said Arabs in the United States should be confined.
Although Coble disagreed with the caller, who suggested detaining Arab Americans in prison camps, he did say that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to establish internment camps for Japanese Americans was necessary at the time.
“We were at war. [Japanese Americans] were an endangered species,” Coble said. “For many of these Japanese Americans, it wasn’t safe for them to be on the street.”
Coble went on to say that, like most Arab Americans today, Japanese Americans during World War II were not enemies of the country. He contended that Roosevelt had to think about the security of the United States.
“Some [Japanese Americans] probably were intent on doing harm to us,” he said. “Just as some of these Arab Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us.”
APA Legislators Respond
When Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif., learned about the broadcast, he telephoned Coble.
“He knew why I was calling,” Honda recounted. “I asked him, ‘Now that 60 years have passed and the reparation movement by the Japanese Americans asking for an apology [has succeeded], didn’t that shed some light as to whether internment was necessary or not?’ He still said that President Franklin Roosevelt did the right thing.
“I told him my father asked me, ‘If we were behind barbed wire [at the Amache camp] and the guns were pointed into the camps, were we there for our protection?’ ”
Honda said that Coble then quickly wrapped up the conversation, saying that “during the reparation movement from ’80 to ’87, he was the one that was managing the opposition to the bill.”
Outraged and concerned about Coble’s statements, Honda, Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif. and Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., sent a letter to Coble asking for a meeting to discuss his views about the internment of Japanese Americans.
In response to the letter and the burgeoning media attention, Coble wrote a letter to the three lawmakers trying to clarify his comments and saying that had no intent of offending Japanese Americans or Arab Americans.
“I regret that many Japanese and Arab Americans found my choice of words offensive because that was certainly not my intent,” Coble said in the letter, which Honda received on Monday. “The point I was trying to make during the radio show was that given the circumstances in which President Roosevelt found himself at the time and the information that was available to him, he made a decision which he felt was in the best interest of national security. Today we can certainly look back and see the damage that was caused because of this decision and an action that should never be repeated.”
Coble also said that although great strides have been made to improve diversity, acceptance and understanding since 1941, there is still much work that needs to be done.
Coble was unavailable for comment, but a spokesperson from his office reiterated the statement that he did not mean to offend Japanese Americans or Arab Americans.
Coble’s decision to defend his stand has also triggered some bipartisan political dialogue.
“I, too, am outraged by Congressman Coble’s praise of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II,” stated Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “This sentiment is absolutely deplorable. Congressman Coble’s comments coincide with similarly defamatory statements made by another member of the Republican party (Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C.) and reopened the wounds caused by Trent Lott’s comments.”
Honda shares those same feelings.
“It’s interesting that nobody from the Republican leadership has said anything,” commented the San Jose Democrat. “When Trent Lott’s issue came up, the president got involved; the leadership in the Republican party spoke out and said ‘we’re not aligning ourselves with those comments.’ And ultimately, Lott was replaced as the president of the Senate. This is no different. It’s racially grounded.”
A Call to Step Down
Nationwide, those in the Japanese American and APA communities are angered and worried by Coble’s statements. John Tateishi, national executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), said he is troubled by Coble’s statements because Coble chairs the House subcommittee on Homeland Security, a position that requires fair-minded thinking and a commitment to ensure the rights of citizens.
“I found Congressman Coble’s statement last week incredulous,” said Tateishi, who at the age of three was interned at the camp in Manzanar, Calif. with his family for three years. “How can someone who believed that our imprisonment during World War II was justified and was the proper course of action be sensitive to the Arab American and Muslim communities in today’s environment?”
Tateishi said that JACL has issued a public statement condemning Coble for his comments and view and has sent a letter to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., calling for the removal of Coble as the chair of the subcommittee on Homeland Security.
“For him to have said that he agrees with FDR’s actions to intern Japanese Americans is, in itself, reason enough for him to step down as the chair for the subcommittee,” Tateishi said. “We want Coble to apologize and resign his chairmanship. It’s untenable that he should continue in his current chairmanship of the subcommittee.”
Attorney Dale Minami said Coble’s comments, which suggested his support of the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, without notice of charges, without attorneys, trials or evidence of potential espionage is highly offensive.
“[This] reflects a deep ignorance of both history and of Congress’ own findings that racism, war hysteria and lack of political leadership led to this civil rights disaster,” Minami said. “Japanese Americans were not placed in concentration camps for their own safety, they were surrounded by barbed wire in the most desolate areas of the country. The guns of the guard pointed into the camps, not outside. And to imprison innocent people because they are threatened by criminals is utterly nonsensical.”
Minami was lead counsel for the legal team that successfully reopened the landmark Supreme Court cases of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui, overturning their convictions for refusing to be interned during World War II.
More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps starting in 1942 and ending in early 1946. In 1988, Congress passed legislation apologizing for the internments and gave surviving internees $20,000 each in reparations.
Feb. 19 will mark the 61st anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Ceremonies to mark the occasion are planned at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco.
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