‘Toso’ Himel ‘75 Comments for Sacramento Bee on Japanese Internment

Yoshinori “Toso” Himel ‘75 commented for the Sacramento Bee on issues connected to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The article concerns a local screening of a documentary film about the internment, And Then They Came for Us, which was sponsored by the Asian/Pacific Bar Association of Sacramento (ABAS) Law Foundation.

Himel, a retired Assistant United States Attorney who regularly teaches civil pretrial and trial practice at King Hall as well as legal writing to new attorneys at the Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center, is President of the ABAS Law Foundation. He has long been active in issues related to the internment, and in the Bee article, he voiced concerns over parallels between the discrimination Japanese Americans encountered during the 1940s and current efforts to restrict Muslim immigration, build a wall across the Mexico border, and ban transgender individuals from serving in the military.

“We are in the midst of a campaign of fear and hatred, the same kind of campaign of fear and hatred that caused the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II,” Himel said. “We want to make sure it never happens again.”