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(CNN)Actor and activist George Takei recalls the day his life changed forever.
“I remember myself as a 5-year-old boy gazing out of the front window of our living room,” Takei said at a preview of an exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.
“I saw two soldiers marching up our driveway. They carried rifles with shiny bayonets on them.”
President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1988 that paid reparations to the Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned. The legislation apologized for the government action, saying it was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”
Troubled by Trump’s Policy
Sakamoto and others say they are troubled by President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, signed last month, that temporarily barred citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The president is vowing to roll out a new executive order next week that will be tailored to a federal court decision that blocked his travel ban.
“In some way, history is repeating itself,” Sakamoto said. “I’m fearful for a lot of the Latinos and Muslims, because they are being sent back. It is because of what we look like — you could tell us from the white population.”
Nakamura-Okazaki agreed.
“It is absolutely wrong and against the Constitution to target one group of people and pass certain laws against that group,” Nakamura-Okazaki said.
Takei said Trump’s executive order “had the same animus and prejudice and ignorance” as the one signed by Roosevelt in 1942.
“But it is a different America today,” Takei added after noting the mass protests sparked by Trump’s order.
“I never thought I’d fight for any political thing but I feel I need to say something now,” said Sakamoto. “My mother did what she was told to do. It makes me sad she couldn’t express how she felt. I need to be my mother’s voice.”
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