WHO'S APOLOGIZING TO THE IMMIGRANTS WE HAVE IN CAMPS NOW?:

"During the years leading up to World War II, California led the nation in fanning the flames of racism," said Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, who was born in Japan.

The resolution said anti-Japanese sentiment began in California as early as 1913, when the state passed the Alien Land Law, targeting Japanese farmers who were perceived as a threat by some in the massive agricultural industry. Seven years later, the state barred anyone with Japanese ancestry from buying farmland.

"We are specifically apologizing for wrongs that were committed on this floor," Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said in the chamber.

"We are apologizing for what we have done."

Senators will take up a version of the resolution later in the year and send it to the governor to sign. California is providing no financial compensation.

A congressional commission in 1983 concluded that the detentions were a result of "racial prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership." Five years later, the U.S. government formally apologized and paid $20,000 in reparations to each victim.

Several California lawmakers noted the state's direct role in discriminating against Japanese Americans and carrying out the federal government's order to send residents to internment camps.

Two camps in the mid-1940s were in California: Manzanar on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and Tule Lake near the Oregon state line, the largest of all the camps.

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