Manzanar Committee Lauds Selection of Rep. Debra Haaland As Nominee for Secretary of the Interior

The following is an official statement by the Manzanar Committee.

LOS ANGELES — President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Representative Debra Haaland (D-New Mexico) to serve as the next Secretary of the Interior. The Japanese American community, especially all of us who are actively working to keep the story of “camp” and the forced removal alive, should clearly support this historic nomination.

For the first time in history, a Native American would serve as Secretary of the Interior, overseeing public lands, Native American affairs, and the National Park Service. For the Manzanar Committee, we know that the Manzanar National Historic Site, and other Japanese American confinement sites—many being part of the National Park Service—would receive crucial attention and support for their continued and sustained efforts to record our story and its lessons for sustaining our democracy.

The value of leaders like Rep. Haaland, a person whose lived experience and community’s history bears the scars of some of our nation’s worst practices, cannot be understated. Her nomination is nothing short of an inspired choice.

The constitutional crisis sparked by Executive Order 9066 and the subsequent incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry hold invaluable lessons for our democracy. As our nation endures the seemingly daily challenges to our constitutional democracy, the telling of our community’s story is more important than ever. It serves as a constant reminder that democracy is a fragile concept that must be celebrated and defended at all times.

We, as the stakeholders of all the confinement sites, the survivors, and descendants of those who lived behind barbed wire from Manzanar, Minidoka, Tule Lake, Bainbridge Island, and all the other sites, must raise our voices in support of Rep. Haaland’s nomination.

The Manzanar Committee is dedicated to educating and raising public awareness about the incarceration and violation of civil rights of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II and to the continuing struggle of all peoples when Constitutional rights are in danger. A non-profit organization that has sponsored the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since 1969, along with other educational programs, the Manzanar Committee has also played a key role in the establishment and continued development of the Manzanar National Historic Site. For more information, check out our web site at https://manzanarcommittee.org, call us at (323) 662-5102, and e-mail us at info@manzanarcommittee.org. You can also follow the Manzanar Committee on Facebook, on Twitter at @manzanarcomm, on Instagram at @manzanarcommittee, on Pinterest and on YouTube.

-30-

LEAD PHOTO: Representative Debra Haaland. Photo courtesy of the office of Rep. Haaland via Flickr.

The Manzanar Committee’s Official web site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this site are required. Photographs, graphic images, and other content not specified are subject to additional restrictions. Additional information is available at: Manzanar Committee Official web site – Licensing and Copyright Information.