Why people need to be educated...

A recent opinion piece from the Tri-City Herald is making the rounds among Japanese Americans (JA) and JA-related groups on Facebook.  An associate professor of philosophy and political science at Columbia Basin College in the state of Washington wrote an opinion piece in which he states that "racism" was not one of the reasons for the incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.  He cites evidence to support his position.  As I read this piece, I was saddened that an academic, whose expertise is supposedly in philosophy and political science, would present such a biased and poorly documented opinion piece.  In essence, he should know better.

Much of what he presents is one-sided, misleading, or just wrong.  I thought I'd just point out some examples.

•  He cites Japanese aggression, atrocities, and war crimes as part of America's prejudice against Japanese.  He notes this is not racist per se, but simply anger directed at Americans of Japanese ancestry, simply because of guilt by association.  However, this is actually racism.  It's also funny that some of the aggression and atrocities he cites occurred after the incarceration began, so those things could not have been a factor in the incarceration.
• He concludes a part of his opinion piece with "Before pontificating about American mistreatment in the relocation camps, critics should acknowledge the horrendous war crimes perpetrated by Imperial Japan."  First, most "critics" do acknowledge that what the Japanese did during the war was horrific and did constitute war crimes.  However, what do things Japan did during the war have to do with the way we treated our own citizens?  The statement he makes simply comes across as seeing just dark hair and slanted eyes.  Remember, two-thirds of the individuals incarcerated during the war were US citizens.  What others did should have no bearing on how we treat our own citizens, who were supposed to have rights.
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  He presents numbers of individuals incarcerated from the "glass half full" perspective.  He notes the low number of individuals incarcerated in Hawaii, some left camps to attend college, others to work, and some served in the US military.  These statements show he does not understand Executive Order 9066 (EO9066) and its implications.  EO9066 essentially carves up America and its territories into military districts and give local military commanders the authority to decide who could or could not remain in these districts.  Essentially gave those military commanders carte blanche authority to do what they thought was necessary to protect their military installations.  Lt. Gen. Delos Emmons decides not to do mass incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii.  This accounts for the relatively low numbers of individuals who were incarcerated, mostly due to the ABC list and other secret govt. initiatives.  In contrast, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt of the Western Defense Command declares individuals of Japanese ancestry to be a threat and creates exclusion zones along the west coast.  DeWitt is quoted as saying "A Jap's a Jap, makes no difference if the Jap's a citizen or not."  I would say, that's a bit racist.  In fact, in many of his declarations, Lt. Gen. DeWitt included individuals of German and Italian ancestry, but also afforded those groups exceptions.  In all cases, he was careful to state that his declarations applied to "all persons of Japanese ancestry," meaning no exceptions were granted to them.  Again, I'd say that's a bit racist.  Also, the Federal Govt chose some of the camp locations with the intention of leveraging the camp populations for labor.  This was especially true in farm country like Wyoming, where the govt expected young men to leave either to join the military or work in war industries in the cities.  This would leave a labor gap, which the local farmers were happy to fill with the young men of Japanese ancestry at the nearby War Location Authority Camps.  These individuals didn't just get to leave camp, they had to be vetted and obtain a pass. 
• He cites the "thousands" of people of German and Italian ancestry that were incarcerated during the war.  This statement is only partly true.  The 1940 Census counted a little over 127,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them US citizens, in the 48 contiguous states.  Of those, approximately 123,000 were incarcerated in various camps.  The same census counted a little over 5.2 million individuals of German ancestry and about 4.6 million individuals of Italian ancestry.  Of those, approximately 12,000 individuals of German ancestry and less than 500 individuals of Italian ancestry were incarcerated into various camps.  I would say the glass isn't quite half full.  I should emphasize that EO9066 was not specific to people of Japanese ancestry nor did it specifically say people would be incarcerated.  However, EO9066 was issued to facilitate the incarceration of people for any reason.
• He cites spy activity as partial justification.  He cites the one Japanese naval officer assigned to the Japanese Consulate in Hawaii prior to the war who provided much of the intelligence on Pearl Harbor prior to the attack.  The US knew of this individual and one individual spy hardly constitutes the wave of spy activity cited immediately after the war began.  He also cites the Niihau incident, which arguably could be a case for locals aiding a downed Japanese pilot, but it's a complex story that tends to be diluted down to a locals being Japanese sympathizers.  Finally, he cites activities in the Philippines, which has little to no relevance to the situation in the US.  In fact, the US intelligence apparatus had a pretty good tab on what was going on in terms of spy and espionage activity and Japan's plans for these here in the homeland.  As cited in one govt report, "Japanese are hampered as spies and saboteurs, because of their easily distinguishable physical appearance."  There are govt documents supporting the notion that the govt knew there was no real concern for espionage activity.
• He cites that loyalties were "vetted" in camp and that some proportion essentially failed the test.  Yes, there were some who renounced their American citizenship, mostly because their country had abandoned them, not because they had an affection for Japan.  Yes, some of the Japanese nationals thought Japan would win the war and were supporters.  But, again, two-thirds of those incarcerated were US citizens.  The two questions he cites, known as questions 27 and 28, were the key questions in the so-called loyalty questionnaire.  Question 27 essentially asked if you'd be willing to serve in the US armed forces and defend American anywhere and anyhow.  Some took pause at this question, fearing they may be sent to the Pacific theater of war and could end up shooting at relatives on the other side.  So they would answer "no."  Question 28 was more complicated.  The phrase in the middle "...will you forswear any allegiance to the Japanese Emperor or any other foreign government or power?" was problematic.  Some answered "no," because they had no allegiance to the Japanese Emperor or other foreign power.  How could they forswear something they didn't have?  They were Americans.  Others were more cynical and thought if they answered "yes," then the govt would use that as justification to arrest them, since they would essentially be admitting to having an allegiance to the Japanese Emperor, which they didn't.  Sadly, the only correct answer to these two questions were "yes" and providing any other answer had serious implications.  I wonder how the writer of the opinion piece would handle such a questionnaire under similar circumstances?

As a final point, in the research conducted for the coram nobis cases of Minoru Yasui, Fred Korematsu, and Gordon Hirabayashi and for the reparations movement, previously private or secret govt documents became public.  Among them, the Munson Report, which concluded there was no need to incarcerate people of Japanese ancestry if we went to war with Japan, a draft copy of Lt. Gen. John DeWitt's request to exclude and incarcerate people of Japanese ancestry from his command that clearly showed his justification was mostly race-based, and other memos and documents showing the govt was careful not to look racist in its policy toward people of Japanese ancestry during the war.  In fact, there is documentation of a phone conversation between Lt. Gen. John DeWitt and Justice Department officials telling DeWitt to tone down his language in his request, because the Federal Govt could not appear to be racist.

So, I would like to invite the professor who wrote this opinion piece to visit the Japanese American National Museum here in Los Angeles.  I'm a volunteer docent at the museum and would be happy to give you a tour.  Learn about the Japanese American experience and learn why much of what you wrote is misinformed.  Learn that what happened 75 years ago is relevant to today's national dialog.  Just because politicians and national leaders supported the incarceration back in 1941 didn't make it right back then, and it doesn't make it right today.  In fact, the parallels with today are somewhat uncanny and are an embodiment of the phrase "history repeats itself."  At the end of the day, we can't just live in our bubbles and yell at each other.  Educating people is the most important thing, so we don't repeat that part of our history that was not the best of America.

#EO9066   #LetsMakeAmericaBuenoAgain 
 

Facts...

I was a huge fan of the TV show Dragnet when I was a kid.  Actually, I should more correctly state that I was a fan of the revival of Dragnet that featured Jack Web and Harry Morgan.  The original series ran before I was born and featured Ben Alexander as Officer Frank Smith, instead of Harry Morgan's Office Bill Gannon.  Most true fans of the show know the often quoted "Just the facts, Ma'am" was never uttered by Sgt. Joe Friday.  If you want to learn more about this, go see:  http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/dragnet.asp

Facts are an important component of life.  Yet, in this day and age, people seem to think that facts don't matter or facts are simply what they believe, true or not.  We see this more and more in the political realm, where politicians seem to quote tons of "facts" to the point where it seems if they simply state something (true or not), it's a fact.  I really get annoyed when a politician declares "The American people want blah, blah," when the facts show otherwise.  This phenomenon recently reached a new high with the most recent presidential election.  Spokespersons in all the parties spouted off all kinds of statements as "facts," when in reality most were just outright falsehoods or extreme distortions of facts.  The Trump campaign and the President himself are most guilty of this.  Interestingly, both the media and other "independent" groups have tried to "fact check" statements by politicians.  Sadly, even these groups find it difficult to be heard among the cacophony and have even been accused of being purveyors of distortions.  More disturbing is that it seems like the vast majority of Americans don't really want to know the facts.  Facts don't seem as important as what is being said.  It just seems like we can't have a reasonable conversation that relies on facts to guide us.  If someone challenges your statement with a fact, attack the messenger as a purveyor of lies.  Yelling down your opponent seems to be the order of the day, rather than having a civilized exchange.

With all these distortions happening at an even greater pace, I'm waiting for the moment when someone starts to tell me that 2+2=17, ignoring mathematical properties that say otherwise.  Well, they may just be presenting "alternative facts" to show how 2+2 really isn't 4...my bad.  People may argue that I'm living in a bubble and that I have unreasonable expectations of the world.  Maybe I'm turning into that old fart that I swore I'd never become after hearing stuff my parents and grandparents would say about my generation.  However, I remember a time not too long ago when people cared about these things and facts were facts.  Just the facts, Ma'am....even if Sgt. Joe Friday never uttered these words, these are words we should all try to live by if we want to move forward as a country.

#LetsMakeAmericaBuenoAgain

2016 Presidential Election Post-mortem

In this day and age of instant and high turnover information, peoples' attention spans are very short.  Most modern news cycles are on the order of days, sometimes hours.  So that said, this post will be coming eons late, since we're over a month post-election.  But, I figured it'd be fun just to jot down some thoughts about the election and its aftermath.

I've watched with amusement as both political parties have been scrambling to figure out what happened and what they should do going forward.  However, it's very clear that officials in both parties totally missed the boat this election, which resulted in Trump winning the Republican nomination and eventually the Presidency and Hillary losing what most thought was an election that should've been "in the bag."  Both parties missed critical signs that should have told them they needed to get out of their bubbles and make some serious changes.  Alas, it was not to be and we ended up with one of the strangest election outcomes.

The Republican party, although happy about the fact they now control the Presidency and both houses of Congress, nevertheless have much to contend with.  First and foremost is the fact that their President-elect isn't a true Republican, nor is he a true conservative.  I still haven't figured out what he is, other than someone who will do or say anything to make himself look good, someone with an extremely narrow world view, and someone who has unbelievably thin skin; not good characteristics for a President.  Second is the fact that the party itself is fractured into these factions that don't seem to get along with each other, which is likely to make legislative maneuvering very challenging.  It'll be interesting to see if they can forge the alliances they need to move desired legislation forward.  Third, is the perception that there's a growing faction of racists within the Republican party that is becoming ever more vocal.  This started during the Obama years, but with the no holds barred, free-wheeling Trump campaign, these individuals have become emboldened, much like the fringe groups that have come out of the shadows (see my other post:  Out of the Shadows...).  Finally, the Trump campaign is the first in modern history to essentially do and say whatever they thought necessary to win the election.  I laugh when I hear discussions about "fake news" permeating Facebook....I'm sorry, fake news is permeating everything.  I don't know how many times I saw and heard a Trump campaign official or supporter basically say the most outrageous lie as if it were fact.  In fact, it seemed the attitude of the Trump campaign was if we say it, it must be true.  I'm not talking about the nuanced BS that both political parties typically throw out there in the media.  I'm talking about bold-faced, fact-less, totally fantasy-based lies.  What was even more disconcerting about this was that Americans sucked it all up as fact.  This kind of stuff makes me very worried about the future of our country.  Really....are we THAT stupid?  This also raises the important issue of fact-checking.  While some will argue there are no facts and that fact-checking in and of itself is biased, there are situations where there are clear-cut facts that should be properly noted.  Given that the majority of Americans don't have the sufficient attention span to do their due diligence and seem to only respond to sound bites, there is an argument for the media to do a better job of fact-checking and making sure Americans get the information they need to make an informed decision.

On the flip side, I've been laughing as Democrats point to Russian hacking, the Comey letters, and other events to explain their loss.  Too bad nobody within the party has the huevos to admit that Hillary was a very flawed candidate who ran a very flawed campaign.  This election was essentially hers to win and also hers to lose....much like the election of 2008.  She essentially chose to lose.  No doubt the events cited all played some role in the election, but at the end of the day, Hillary ran a campaign that ignored the average American, was forged within a bubble, misunderstood the electoral map, and lacked a core message.  In my opinion, there were two pivotal points in the election where the Hillary campaign should have taken notice and made drastic changes to adjust course.  The first was when Bernie Sanders out fund-raised Hillary.  What was amazing about Sanders' fund raising was not so much that he beat Hillary, it was the fact that he beat her without large donors.  The bulk of the funds Sanders raised came from small donations from the little guy.  This should've been a huge warning flag for the Hillary campaign.  It was, in some sense, the same warning Republicans should've paid attention to when Trump kept winning during the primaries.  There were clear signs of the grassroots, small guy, vibe in both parties, but the mainstream party officials either totally ignored it or totally missed it.  The second was when the Access Hollywood tape was leaked that led to the accusations of Trump sexually harassing women.  Hillary should have gotten a major bump in the polls, but there was only a blip.  This was a sign of two things.  First, it demonstrated how unpopular Hillary was in the eyes of independents and disaffected Democrats.  They weren't going to vote for her regardless of the accusations made against Trump.  The Hillary campaign should have been in a panic at that point.  Second, it showed that a large segment of Americans really didn't care much about Trump's behavior; they were going to vote for him despite the things he said and did.  This should've been a huge sign to the Hillary campaign.

So, come January 20, 2017, we will have President Donald Trump.  He will have a Republican House and Senate to move his agenda forward.  I really hope the Democrats don't do like the Republicans and basically attempt to block everything brought before them simply to be obstructionist.  I frankly felt what the Republicans did was overt racism veiled in differences in political ideology.  The Democrats should oppose when they need to, but everyone in the Congress needs to be doing the work they're supposed to be doing and reaching across the aisle to do it.  Compromise should not be a dirty word.  Finally, both parties need to take a real close look at themselves and make changes to address the concerns of America...show some political leadership for a change.  As I have been telling people, middle America just gave the big middle finger to the rest of America.  Not only is it time to address their concerns, but to also weave them back into the fabric of America to make this country what it should be.  Our political leaders need to provide that government of the people, by the people, for the people that Abraham Lincoln described in his Gettysburg Address.

#LetsMakeAmericaBuenoAgain

Freedom of Speech and Defining Populations

A few weeks ago, the LA Times Travel section had an article about National Park sites that featured two of the ten concentration camp locations (the two within California) that were operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during World War II.  That article, which was trying to focus on race and ethnicity in America's history, resulted in the LA Times publishing two letters that criticized the original article, essentially defending the incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II, and resulted in wide-spread condemnation of the newspaper by readers offended by those letters.  This posting is not about the letters per se nor the details of the response to them.  Although, I have to say the original letter writers were very ill-informed.  I had to chuckle when one talked about "anti-U.S. remake of history," since the history the individual cited was, in fact, the propaganda circulated to the public at the time by the U.S. government and was not an accurate reflection of history....but, that is also the nature of history.

Rather, I wanted to focus on two things about this whole incident.  The first was the response of individuals who claimed the LA Times should not have printed those letters to begin with, since they espoused cultural stereotypes, misinformation, and racial bias.  The LA Times eventually issued an apology and responded by saying the letters did not meet their editorial standards and therefore should never had been published.  However, I would argue that the LA Times should not be faulted for printing those letters.  Why should the LA Times have published the letters?  First, there's the First Amendment and while what was written was, again, wrong and could be construed racist, those individuals have the right to their opinion, right or wrong.  Frankly, by printing those letters, the LA Times has exposed the fact that racism and bias are alive and well in America, something many people are just now starting to realize.  Thus, these letters provide an opportunity to educate the public, especially in a time when racial bias is on the rise.  The First Amendment is not something that can be selectively applied.  By denying these individuals the ability to express their opinion, what's to prevent someone else from suppressing your opinion in the future?  Who's opinion is right?  Who's is wrong?  This is the nature of the First Amendment.  My view is that the LA Times has done the community a huge favor and it presents an opportunity to educate America about what exactly happened during that period and why the opinions expressed in those letters were wrong.  Suppressing these people won't make them nor their opinions go away.  Yelling back at them won't change their opinion nor make them go away.  Educating them might change their opinion and might make them go away.

Second, the general discussion of the wartime incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry engendered by these letters reveals a flaw in how the affected population has been characterized.  Everyone tends to treat this group as a single homogeneous group; calling them "Japanese" as if they were all Japanese immigrants with Japanese citizenship (naturalization laws at the time prevented Japanese immigrants from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens).  Both the letter writers and those who responded to those letters make this same mistake.  In fact, I blame many in the Japanese American community for perpetuating this myth, because they too tend to use the phrase "Japanese" when talking about this group.  It is extremely important to remember that the population of people of Japanese ancestry was, and continues to be, a mixture of Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese ancestry.  In fact, the vast majority at that time, and even today, were U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry, not immigrants from Japan.  As an example, the 1940 Census estimated there were a little over 127,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry living in the 48 contiguous states, the vast majority living in west coast states.  Approximately 42% of the population of Hawaii was of Japanese ancestry.  The majority of those individuals (approximately two-thirds) were U.S. citizens....they were not Japanese, they were Americans.  Therefore, it is incorrect to refer to all of them as Japanese.  The Japanese American community should stop referring to the population (past and present) as "Japanese," since we will always be a mixture of these two broad groups.

Why should we care about what most might call a technicality?  The distinction is extremely important, because of perceptions; referring to everyone as "Japanese" immediately equates them as being immigrants and at that time, the enemy.  More importantly, the Federal government treated this population as a single homogeneous group and went to great lengths to ensure the public treated them as such.  Hence, the use of the phrase "non-aliens" when referring to U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry; they were never referred to as "citizens" in any public declarations or documents.  A second example of this were Americans of Japanese ancestry serving in the U.S. military when the war started.  These individuals, all U.S. citizens, were labeled as 4-C "Enemy Alien" and expelled from service.  How could they be "Enemy Alien" if they were U.S. citizens?  Again, the government exploited the existing racial prejudice and fear to justify the label and implement policy.  It might be of interest to those two individuals who wrote those letters that prior to the start of the war, the Federal government was concerned about the high concentration of people of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii and along the west coast that they commissioned an investigation into the loyalties of those individuals.  The so-called Munson Report came to the conclusion that there would be no need to incarcerate people of Japanese ancestry if we went to war with Japan.  Curtis Munson, the author of the report, was very careful to note that the population were mostly Americans of Japanese ancestry and that many of the immigrant Japanese would have become U.S. citizens had our laws allowed them to.  A similar independent report by the FBI came to the same conclusion.  The conclusions of both these reports were ignored when the war began.  Calling the entire population "Japanese" facilitates people assigning guilt upon Americans of Japanese ancestry as being part of the enemy population.  In fact, many Americans even today assign guilt to Americans of Japanese ancestry for the heinous war crimes committed by Japanese troops during World War II.  How can American citizens be blamed for the acts of individuals of another nation?  Guilt by association, or more correctly, paraphrasing the late comedian George Carlin, guilt simply because their parents were born in the wrong country.

Again, these are important issues that don't just apply to the population of Japanese and Japanese Americans.  You can replace "Japanese" with whatever ethnic/racial group you want and the same kinds of issues arise.  America needs to better understand its ethnic/racial and multi-cultural history, embrace it, and make this a better country for all.  Yes, we need to protect ourselves from both internal and external threats.  But labeling groups in a homogeneous fashion and creating stereotypes is not the way to do it.

#LetsMakeAmericaBuenoAgain

Out of the shadows...

We're now a bit over a month past the Nov 2016 election and a week post-Electoral College.  I will be posting my thoughts about the election in the near future, but wanted to start by talking about a very disconcerting consequence of the election.

The election of Barack Obama led to people and the media talking about a "post-racial" America.  While Obama's election as President did show how far America has come since its founding, it hardly meant the country was in a post-racial period.  This was best exemplified by a variety of race-based issues, such as police shootings, that flared up during the Obama years.  However, more importantly, the manner in which candidate Donald Trump ran his campaign clearly showed that we are far from being "post-racial."  While I don't want to sound like I'm saying that all Trump supporters are racists, it's very clear that the language used by Trump and his campaign and their refusal to acknowledge the consequences of the language they've used has allowed fringe groups to come out of the shadows and use the language of the campaign as a vehicle to push their agendas and attempt to exert their influence again.

This has led to increased activities by these various groups and has resulted in an alarming spike in post-election racist-based incidents across the country.  These incidents have sadly engulfed people of all colors, creed, and age.  I have never seen this level of racist activity since my childhood.  However, what has been even more alarming is the deafening silence and, in some cases, participation of our political leaders.  Democrats are too busy trying to figure out what happened in the election, assigning blame, and laying out plans for their political future.  Republicans are too busy trying to figure out how to exploit their current majorities and how they fit into the coming Trump era.  The President-elect himself has been nearly silent on this issue, other than a brief "stop it" mentioned in a 60-Minutes interview.

I have previously talked about lack of political leadership and we're seeing a prime example here.  It is sad to me that members of both political parties have put party loyalty and party survival above the good of the country.  The increase in racist activity needs a strong response from our political leadership, not the echos of silence that we are currently hearing.  In particular, President-elect needs to be more vocal about this issue, if he wants to prevent his legacy from being tainted by the activities of these groups.

However, in parallel, we need to educate Americans that America is not White, it's not Black, it's not Hispanic, it's not Asian, it's not Native American, it's not any other ethnic/racial group....it's ALL of them.  The same thing can be said about religion or any other aspect of our country.  America exists and is a great nation because of its diversity.  As such, there needs to be a better appreciation of this important component of our country.  In particular, people have to stop living in their various bubbles and start reaching out across political party, ethnic/racial, and religious ideologies to build those bridges that will help us all understand and appreciate others.

Since our political leaders do not seem to care about what's been happening, it's time for Americans to stand up and fight these injustices.  Recall our Constitution starts with "We the people..." and it's time for we the people to fill the void created by our political leaders and work towards creating a truly post-racial America.

#LetsMakeAmericaBuenoAgain