During times of political turbulence like these, knowing our country's painful history of racial suppression is necessary to sympathize with and support the victims. On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of around 120,000 Japanese American citizens to internment camps spread out throughout the country out of racial profiling towards individuals resembling the Japanese bombers from the Pearl Harbor attack the previous year. According to former prisoners like actor George Takei, they and their families were forced out of their homes, placed onto trains wearing tags indicating their destinations, and forced to live in huts surrounded by barb wire and armed men watching from guard towers.
And Then They Came for Us (2017) is a harrowing look into the unthinkable injustices performed by our government right under the public's nose. These crimes against humanity were kept secret until the 1980s when then-President Ronald Reagan issued a public apology to the victims on behalf of the United States Government for their actions. The film begins with a short montage about President Donald Trump's proposal for his highly controversial travel ban on Muslims coming into the United States from Middle Eastern countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, followed by interviews from former prisoners like Takei refuting the right-wing media's justifications for such a ban.
One such experience that stood out to me was Fred Korematsu, who refused to follow the U.S. Government's orders knowing that he would be considered a fugitive by the government. One of the few rays of sunshine amidst the subject matter's grim atmosphere is renowned photographers Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange's images that captured both the prisoners' human side and the long-censored scenes of barbed wire fences and prion bar-like silhouettes. In the words of Takei:
"It was a failure of American democracy, and yet because most Americans are not aware of that dark chapter of American history, it's about to be repeated."
His prediction would sadly become a reality, as a year after the release of this documentary, the Trump administration would enact its "zero-tolerance" policy on unauthorized immigration with the separation of young children from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border, with the parents being deported and the children placed in cages under inhumane living conditions. Since the release of this film in 2017, this country has repeatedly failed to see individuals of different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds as people and live up to the words imprinted in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
As a U.S. citizen with Japanese and Taiwanese roots, I not only relate to the victims' anger and disappointment with our country's government but am also discouraged by this administration's unwonted cruelty towards migrant men, women, and children. However, these blatant acts of racial hatred reveal how much this country has lived in ignorance and failed to recognize our privileges while turning a blind eye to the continuing injustices happening at our border and around the country.
In the end, And Then They Came for Us returns to the subject of Islamophobia as seen in the beginning and concludes on a solemn yet hopeful note for its audience regarding support and sympathy towards the oppressed, and ensuring a safer future for generations to come.
Final Score: 10 out of 10
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