"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

I always wondered how the unconstitutional internment of Japanese American citizens could happen. What I didn't know is that the US government knew that Japanese Americans weren't spies, and yet they tore families of American citizens from homes and stripped them of their possessions, put them on trains and into horse stables at race tracks and then shipped them to the middle of nowhere. The effort was led by two racist individuals in the Army: Lieutenant General John DeWitt and the mastermind behind the Japanese internment and Executive Order 9066, Karl Bendetsen.

DeWitt was a useful idiot who was amateurish and paranoid, frequently prone to conspiracy theories. DeWitt said, “The Japanese, I have no confidence in their loyalty whatsoever. I am speaking now of the native-born Japanese” — by which he means U.S.-born American citizens. The way he put it to Congress was — and forgive me here, but this is a direct quote — he said: “A Jap’s a Jap.”

But Bendetsen orchestrated the prison camps:

“The Japanese race is an enemy race. Racial affinities are not severed by migration. While many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of American citizenship have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted. There is no ground for assuming that any Japanese, though born and raised in the United States, will not turn against this nation.” He said, “The vast majority of those who have studied the Oriental mind assert that a substantial majority of Nisei bear allegiance to Japan and will engage in organized sabotage.”

Naval Intelligence Officer Kenneth Ringle knew better than almost any American:

"Japan really had been recruiting and running spies all over the country, particularly on the West Coast — including a whole bunch of native-born Americans. But not Japanese Americans. And not immigrants from Japan.

The records and the documents on Japan’s spying operation – that were stolen by U.S. Naval Intelligence in that insane break-in involving a San Quentin safecracker furloughed just for that day — those records showed that the Tokyo government was adamant, they were even annoyed, that Japanese Americans were of no help to them.

They wrote to their agents, “If you’re coming in here and we’re, you know, trying to get people loyal to the emperor, don’t trust the American Japanese.”

The people paid by Japan were people like Ku Klux Klan leader in New Jersey, American First fascist, Ralph Townsend, and the owner of an antique doll shop named Velvalee Dickinson. Not a single Japanese American living in the country who was involved with espionage for Japan. They were fiercely loyal and our best defense.

“The best Americans are those who haven’t come here yet, who understand the promise of America, and that’s what motivates them to come here and to be good citizens.” And he felt that the Japanese Americans exemplified this a hundred percent.

I was shocked to learn this history. There is a reason we were never taught this in our textbooks, because of the horrible shame our country bears for allowing this to happen. And we are seeing it echo in our present time. I didn't know any of this until I listened to this incredible podcast series Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order. Please listen and learn: