Japanese American museum blasts Trump order as threat to ‘truth and democracy'
A prominent museum preserving the legacy of
Japanese American incarceration during World War II has condemned US President
Donald Trump 's new directive requiring national park sites to flag content deemed critical of the country's history, calling it a dangerous attempt to whitewash past injustices and dismantle democratic values.
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The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) said the policy – which it traced to a May executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' – would suppress uncomfortable truths and erase the legacy of marginalised communities, including the more than 10,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during World War II at sites such as Manzanar and Minidoka.
'JANM is deeply disturbed by this new directive, especially at historical sites like Manzanar and Minidoka where Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated during World War II,' said Ann Burroughs, the museum's president and CEO, in a statement posted to social media on Thursday.
'The widespread dismantling of federal agencies that support our work and the attempts at the wholesale erasure of history will not help us achieve a more just America.'
Burroughs warned the initiative formed part of a broader campaign to 'suppress historical narratives that challenge [the administration's] preferred version of events' and to 'erase the contributions of people of colour, women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other marginalised communities from the American story'.
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