WWII: ‘Heartache of Terminal Island’

Regarding “Remembering the Heartache of Terminal Island,” July 28:

* Italian alien fishermen also had to leave Terminal Island, as well as Japanese nationals (alien enemies) and their dual-citizen Japanese American children.

* It’s easy enough to raise $200,000 for a propaganda museum, when every person of Japanese descent (alien or American-born dual-citizen Japanese), received $20,000 each for “human suffering.” Now they must try to justify the unjustifiable by continuing to pervert history, falsify events and revise WWII history.

* Only those of Japanese ancestry were given a $20,000 entitlement for “human suffering,” because Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) and Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) claim that Japanese were rounded up due to racism while Germans and Italians were rounded up for cause.

At Crystal Citizen Department of Justice internment camps, German, Italian and Japanese families resided side by side but only Japanese families received $20,000 each for human suffering. Some families hauled in--tax-free--more than $200,000 ($20,000 for each parent, plus $20,000 for each child, including those born there. More than 6,000 were born in relocation centers and internment camps. Each are paid under an entitlement to $20,000 and a government apology.)

Would any of the military orders come about if Japan had not bombed Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941?

Japan has just begun coming around to admitting that they were the aggressor in WWII. Isn’t it time that Americans of WWII vintage receive an apology from those who have painted us with the same tar brush as Nazi Germany and fascist Japan? There was a Pacific Holocaust, too--by Japan’s militarists, but we never hear of this as if the only holocaust took place under Hitler. You can look up my biography and realize that where I’m coming from has nothing to do with “racism.”

LILLIAN BAKER

Gardena