Ferguson’s View on Japanese-American Internment Blasted

SACRAMENTO —  Nearly 50 years after the fact, the Assembly halted its lawmaking business Tuesday and debated an issue that still tears at the fabric of California--how to explain the mass roundup and detention of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

After more than an hour of reminiscences and public repentance, legislators voted overwhelmingly to reject a resolution by Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) describing the detention operation as militarily justified.

The Assembly spent its time in what one participant described as “sorrowful” debate reaffirming a resolution passed last year that blamed the internment on “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” Most of the Orange County delegation declined to vote.

The lockup at inland encampments of 110,000 citizens of Japanese ancestry as a security measure was widely condemned in later years. Three years ago, Congress authorized paying $20,000 each in reparations to 60,000 of the still-living former internees.

In the Assembly, the frustration over what remains one of California’s darker episodes was perhaps best expressed by Assemblyman Chris Chandler (R-Yuba City). “Why are we here 48 years after the fact trying to justify the unjustifiable?” he said in denouncing Ferguson’s measure.

Ferguson himself agreed that racism played a part in the roundup of Japanese from California and throughout the West, but maintained the relocation was justified in the wake of Pearl Harbor and reports of thousands of “subversives” present in California.

“I agree with you . . . that it was wrong, it was disgraceful, it was sad,” he said before the Assembly voted 60 to 4 to repudiate his views. “But there were a lot of sad things going on at the time.

“Are you and I going to sit here today and make decisions about how wrong our parents were, and they were a bunch of racists and had no military cause (and that) the war played no role in this thing, in the decision?” he asked.

Under normal circumstances, Ferguson’s resolution would have been swept under the rug, killed quietly in committee during the last, frenetic week of the 1990 session. Before adjourning Friday, legislators still must finish off major measures such as oil spill regulation and a $3.6-billion bond package.

But Democratic leaders decided to bring the resolution to the full floor for a high-profile debate that had all the makings of a political flogging of Ferguson, whose outspoken conservative views have rankled many.

Last year, Ferguson made headlines when he opposed a resolution asking California schools to teach that the Japanese internment resulted from racism, hysteria and political failure--and not for military reasons. He called it part of the “liberal trashing” of America, although the resolution’s conclusions were taken from a presidential commission convened by President Reagan.

On Aug. 15, Ferguson introduced a rival resolution urging schools to adopt a more “balanced” presentation--one that included the idea of “subversives” and a new interpretation of relocation. “It is simply untrue that Japanese-Americans were interned in concentration camps during World War II,” it said.

The language prompted an outcry and guaranteed a confrontation.

In a warm-up to the debate, Ferguson convened an early morning press conference Tuesday to defend his views. Seated before a panel of veterans in bright Hawaiian shirts, Ferguson pleaded semantics and said the Japanese “relocation centers” were not “concentration camps” like those of Nazi Germany.

In addition, Ferguson disclosed that he had received death threats but would continue to defend his resolution.

His opponents called their own press conference, packing an even larger room with war veterans of Japanese descent. They included Fred Korimatsu, a 72-year-old who resisted relocation to a camp in Utah.

“They (Japanese and Japanese-Americans) were behind barbed wires and also the guards had submachine guns,” said Korimatsu, a San Leandro citizen who took issue with Ferguson’s assertions. “It was internment.”

When the issue finally came to the Assembly floor after noon, Ferguson tried to head off public criticism by offering to take the reference to concentration camps out of his resolution altogether. When the Democrats blocked that escape, Ferguson was forced to defend himself during a 70-minute debate.

Ferguson spoke around his colleagues and directed his remarks to the CAL-SPAN television cameras, which have begun to televise Assembly proceedings. He told the television audience that all he wanted was to include all the facts--such as the fact that wartime relocation also applied to German and Italian nationals, such as Joe DiMaggio’s mother.

“Teach the truth, large and small, and let the chips fall where they may,” Ferguson said. “Teach the good and teach the bad.”

Eleven legislators--six Democrats and five Republicans--rose to denounce the Ferguson resolution. Their comments formed a poignant patchwork of remembered fear and injustice.

The voice of Assemblyman Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad) cracked when he described how a Japanese family graciously bowed in respect during his mother’s funeral. Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) remembered the childhood sadness of seeing his Japanese grammar school friends forced to leave.

Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-S. San Francisco), wounded in the Jonestown massacre, said she rose in opposition to the measure because of a banner she recalled hanging in the ill-fated colony run by the Rev. Jim Jones: “Those who do not reflect on history are condemned to repeat it.”

Ferguson’s political isolation was underscored by the fact that Republican leader Assemblyman Ross Johnson of Fullerton denounced the resolution as “divisive.”

“It unnecessarily reopens wounds that should and must be allowed to heal,” he said, adding that Ferguson was not a racist.

No one stood up to support Ferguson, and even some of his Orange County colleagues disappeared from the chambers before the vote. Thirteen legislators in all declined to vote or were missing, including Doris Allen (R-Cypress), Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos), Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach), John Lewis (R-Orange) and Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove).

“I think the tone of the debate was more in sorrow than in anger,” Assemblyman Pat Johnston (D-Stockton) reflected after the session. “Mr. Ferguson’s views are so out of step with the Assembly that it would serve no purpose to make an ad hominum argument.”

Ferguson agreed his views were different from his colleagues, whom he characterized as scared to vote with him because of the issue of race.

“I know how the public feels,” he said.