Minami Tamaki LLP Senior Counsel Dale Minami spoke at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute’s 8th annual Day of Remembrance on February 23. The program examined the parallels between what happened in America 77 years ago and the threats to civil rights happening today and featured the premiere of Jon Osaki’s “Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066.”

Day of Remembrance commemorates the Feb. 19, 1942 signing of Executive Order 9066, which forcibly removed over 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast and sent them to concentration camps across the nation.

The screening was followed by a panel discussion featuring Dale, Jon Osaki, Nicole Oshima of UCLA Nikkei Student Union, and others.

“Alternative Facts” is a one-hour documentary feature film about the false information and political influences that led to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. It sheds light on the people and politics that influenced the signing of the infamous Executive Order 9066. The film exposes the lies used to justify the decision and the cover-up that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It also examines the parallels to the current climate of fear, attitudes towards immigrant communities, and similar attempts to abuse the powers of the government.

Photo: Dale Minami with Warren Furutani by JK Yamamoto.