Listen up, folks. When I was a boy, politicians who were sworn to uphold the Constitution failed us, choosing instead to imprison my entire community of 120,000, most of us citizens. When we came out of the camps, we could have given up on America entirely. /1

But despite all we had been through those four years, we still believed in the promise of America. We didn’t seek vengeance, didn’t renounce our citizenship, didn’t call for those who had done this to us to be stripped of their power. We did something else entirely. /2

We doubled down. We worked harder than ever to ensure that America would live up to her values, so that something like what happened to us would not happen to others. We chose engagement over bitterness. Many of us are still fighting to keep our story alive and taught. /3

Today it is tempting to look at those who have betrayed their oaths and say they deserve no place at the table. I understand that sentiment entirely. I felt the same about FDR, the Democrat who put us in the camps, and Earl Warren, the Republican who called for our internment. /4

But democracies only work if we commit ourselves to its highest principles, even and perhaps especially when they are betrayed by our leaders. The country can and will go off the rails, but it is incredibly important that we the people don’t follow the fools off the tracks. /5

After these past four years, where we have teetered again toward dictatorship and the loss of our precious democratic rights, we must now resist the urge to throw it all out because one side has so grievously erred. That is a recipe for chaos and disintegration of our union. /6

We have been through harder times, more challenging obstacles, more dangerous and violent chaos. I have lived such times. We are many steps away from the precipice still, and we can restore America if we do not let ourselves be dragged down with into the muck of others. /7

For people like me, a gay Japanese American, for whom the laws and the Constitution have always come with an asterisk, America has never been equal or fair. Many in the majority are feeling for the first time how disconcerting it can be for leaders to abrogate their oaths. /8

Take it as a moment for empathy. American democracy is only as strong as its people make it. If we give up on its ideals simply because others have, we will lose something very precious, perhaps for all time. To cherish it is to safeguard it. Take it from an old internee.