Front page news !
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Thank you for putting an Asian American woman writer in the spotlight. Overall, I think it’s useful to let the historical context of how Asian Americans have been treated in this country sink in.
Perhaps because so many of us are successful individually, there’s less of a focus within ourselves in lifting up the larger community—many who live in the fringes in utter poverty. (For instance, the Hmong have a 38% poverty rate.)
Hopefully more of us will open the doors for those that come after us, and look around to help those who are going through hard times.
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Please tell me who took possession of the farms and homes when US Citizens of Japanese decent? Was their equity put in a trust and returned? Did the BANKS take the money and run or did the government steel it? This is never addressed in documentaries I have seen. Who knows the answer?
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@Richard in the case of farmers, it was almost purely a land grab by white farmers, who were jealous of how successful the Japanese-American farmers were. The Japanese did not get their property back after the war. But there was one man, Bob Fletcher, who "took" the land of three Japanese-American farmers and then gave it back to them after the war. One of the farmers had approached him asking him to do this. He was a fruit inspector and well-regarded by the Japanese-Americans who knew him. Look him up. There may have been others.
My father grew up in Riverside, CA, and watched it happen. He was nearly 15 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and many of his friends were sent to the camps. He said it was a travesty, but also that "everyone was scared" and looking for an easy target to blame it on. There were rumors of Japanese submarines just off the coast of California.
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Thank you for sharing a great story. Knowing our history gives us a clearer picture of where we are headed.
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Thank you for printing this and including it in the CA newsletter. We need to remember and be honest about all we’ve done to people that has been immoral and on the wrong side of history.
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I was a young boy living in Oakland, California, when I noticed I only had other white kids to play with. De facto segregation left no black kids and Japanese internment left no Asian kids.
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Mitsuye Endo's story is long overdue, as are many of the other stories here. However, The story of James C. Purcell, my father, Ms. Endo's lawyer, is another story of heroism that should be told. During WWII, when the world was in chaos, and the United States Government chose to respond by rounding up American citizens because they "looked like the enemy," our country's leaders aided and abetted that unconstitutional activity. Their lack of courage was destructive to the fabric of our country. Though James Purcell was called a traitor, and many of his friends turned their backs on him, though his law practice suffered and his wife and children where threatened, HE STOOD UP. Years later, when he was asked why he jeopardized everything for the Endo case, he said, " Our Constitution was at stake. Though you can't always change people's hearts and minds, you can make them follow the law." I think that is good lesson for our country's leaders today.
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