Sandra Endo: My Japanese American grandfather was interned during WWII

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(FOX 11) - Could you pack your entire life into one suit case and leave everything else you've worked for behind, to be herded into a barbed wire enclosed camp and forced to live in wooden barracks just because you "look like the enemy?"

My grandfather, George Yamauchi, and thousands of other Japanese Americans had no other choice after President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized Executive order 9066 during World War II.

The order led to the deportation and incarceration of more than a hundred thousand people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, two thirds were American citizens. My grandfather was one of them.

He would tell me he was held prisoner in his own country simply because of his last name and his Asian eyes. I grew up hearing stories about "camp" and will never forget the look on his face, the wrinkling of his skin, and the tone of his voice as he recalled the suffocating conditions of such limited freedoms.

Now, the mayor of Roanoke, VA, democrat David Bowers is using the horrific interment of Japanese Americans as justification to suspend assistance to Syrian refugees.

As a granddaughter of a survivor of that dark past in American history, I can say, while my grandfather lived a full 94 years filled with love and pride for this country, he was always haunted by the inequity and the raping of his civil rights.

Wherever you stand on the Syrian refugee plight, this is not the answer.