Greg Robinson (1)

Historian Greg Robinson, a childhood friend, and classmate I recently reunited with after 40 years told me that By Order of the President, adapted from his Ph.D. thesis, received unusual attention for a work of history. It came out around 2001 and readers and the media noticed the parallel themes of the book and what was happening in the United States at that time, namely: hostility, fear of, and persecution of immigrants and non-white citizens, a nation attacked by an enemy and at war (Pearl Harbor vs. the World Trade Center), the abridgment of freedoms and suspension of constitutional rights, etc. But in truth, the book is as relevant today, 20 years later, as it was at the turn of the century. Having lived through the Trump years and the continuation of Trumpism, the United States is still tackling many of these issues. And the anti-Japanese sentiments driven by fear and hostility of The Other, described in the book, have been directed at other immigrant groups as well throughout American history. For example, Ken Burns's recent documentary, America and the Holocaust, describes how the United States' policies of keeping immigration to a minimum before and during World War II had dire implications for the Jews who were being exterminated in Europe. Robinson's book takes a critical view of FDR and his Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the forced removal from California and the eventual internment of Japanese, both first and second-generation, aliens and U.S. Citizens alike. The book comprehensively explains what external political, social, and economic factors contributed to it, and what characteristics and weaknesses of FDR, an otherwise venerated man, and President, allowed this unconstitutional and unjust stain on American history to happen.… (meer)