Emil Amok: Xenophobia 79 years ago–The U.S. incarcerated innocent Asian Americans. Today, AAPI are targeted in random acts of violence.

It happened this weekend. E.O.9066. After President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed it, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans, mostly on the west coast, were targeted for incarceration. Feb. 19, 1942. Emil Guillermo talks to Phil Tajitsu Nash, professor, lawyer, activist. about 9066. And how the fight for justice continues to help Japanese Latin Americans, who were also incarcerated in the U.S. but left out of the redress process.

Will it happen again?

79 years later, Asian Americans are subject to violent attacks from California to New York. It began last year with a former president’s scapegoating on the pandemic. But it has now evolved into the kind of xenophobia we saw during WWII.

See my column on AALDEF.org/blog