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Executive Order 9066

The order came down
From the highest source
Obeying the cowards
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

Those who were taken
Were those who looked different
Those who threatened
The land of the free and the home of the brave

They were taken from homes
From farms and from jobs
How could this happen
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

At the point of a gun
Forcibly removed
To live in camps
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

The camps were named
Topaz and Manzanar and Tule Lake and Heart Mountain
Pretty names for desolate places
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

Tens of thousands were relocated
Sato and Yasui and Korematsu
And Hirabayashi
From the land of the free and the home of the brave

Guilty of no crime
Except their last names
And where their parents were born;
Not the land of the free and the home of the brave

Their sons went to war
In the 422nd - Go For Broke
Twenty-one Congressional Medal of Honors
From the land of the free and the home of the brave

The decorations could not cover the shame
Of their families back home
Living in tar paper huts
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

Yet all of the suffering
Gets scarcely a mention
In the history books
Of the land of the free and the home of the brave

It is for us, then, the living
To be here rededicated
To no tolerance of bigotry
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

Let us never forget
That freedom is ethereal
If not extended to all
In the land of the free and the home of the brave

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