I love studying history.
I was first smitten with the subject due in large measure to a late high school teacher, Mr. Terry Wright. He was entertaining, encouraging, and enlightening. He was instrumental in my decision to major in history in college.
As I began to learn more about some of history’s greatest tragedies, I would often wonder what went through people’s minds — especially ordinary people who were witness to extraordinary events.
This is why I love reading old news accounts, watching documentaries, and devouring biographies. History seen through anyone’s eyes is inherently subjective, not to mention subject to all kinds of inaccuracies.
For example, a little more than 80 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that authorized the United States government to forcibly move Japanese Americans to ten concentration camps throughout the country (though mostly in the West). Roughly 120,000 people were taken to these locations, which have often been euphemistically referred to as “internment camps.” This is out of a total Japanese American population of just 127,000.
The majority of the people who were “relocated” — roughly 80,000 of them — were born in the U.S. These second- and even third-generation Americans should have had the same freedoms and protections that their German and Italian American counterparts enjoyed.
As I learned more about this truly shameful period of American history, I couldn’t help but to wonder how millions of Americans could convince themselves that Japanese Americans posed a serious security threat. (We know from the historical record that this was indeed the case.) This was a version of what has been labeled “the yellow peril.”
I wonder the same thing today.
What is going through the minds of millions of ordinary people who are witnessing the forced deportation of what portends to become tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Latinos from our nation? This is happening under the guise of ridding our nation of “criminals” and “gang members.”
However, we know that immigrants — including the undocumented — tend to commit fewer crimes than people who were born in the U.S. This includes violent crimes. Tragically, the legitimate anger and grief of American-born victims of crimes that were committed by immigrants is used for nakedly political purposes. It foments racism against people who “fit the description” of “an illegal.”
Now we are beginning to see the threat of deportation being aimed not only at undocumented immigrants. Even people who have obtained a Permanent Resident Card — known colloquially as a “green card” — are now being affected. Mahmoud Khalil, who was issued a green card, has been detained by Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (“ICE”), even though his status is just below that of a U.S. citizen.
Khalil, who is married to an American citizen, was flagged because he participated in protests against the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza at Columbia University. Khalil has not been charged with any crime. The government — our government — is claiming that he “supports” Hamas, which has rightly been designated a terrorist organization.
Protesting inhumane treatment is not remotely the same as supporting terrorists. When free speech becomes a crime in America, every other right becomes fair game.
It is often difficult to know when history-defining events are taking place in real time. Yet, it is crystal clear that this is one such time. Each of us must make an affirmative decision not to be one of the people about whom future generations of Americans will ask, in disbelief, “What were they thinking?” We need to do some deep soul-searching.
We won’t get a do-over.
Larry Smith is a political columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder