He\u2019s 94 years old and still clearly remembers. Tokuji Yoshihashi remembers Japan\u2019s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and wondering what would happen to Americans like him who looked like the enemy. He soon found out.<\/b>
He\u2019s 94 years old and still clearly remembers. Tokuji Yoshihashi remembers Japan\u2019s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and wondering what would happen to Americans like him who looked like the enemy. He soon found out.
Exactly 75 years ago Sunday, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the incarceration of Yoshihashi and 120,000 other Japanese Americans\u00a0in\u00a0desolate camps scattered across\u00a0deserts\u00a0and swampland. Yoshihashi remembers his anxiety at being locked up and the shock of\u00a0seeing the barbed wire and armed military guards at his camp in Gila River, Ariz.
He left camp in 1944 to fight for the country he still loved as a member of the U. S. Army\u2019s celebrated 100th Infantry Battalion\/442nd Regimental Combat Team,\u00a0a segregated unit of second-generation Japanese Americans known as Nisei. The battles were brutal \u2014\u00a0one comrade threw himself\u00a0on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers in the 1945 fight to break the German Gothic Line in Italy.
But\u00a0Yoshihashi still remembers, with pride, President Harry S. Truman\u2019s words to his fighting unit:\u00a0\u201cYou fought not only the enemy, but\u00a0you fought prejudice\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0you won.\u201d
Today, however, the aging veteran\u00a0wonders\u00a0what his service to safeguard American freedoms and civil rights means\u00a0at a time of President Trump and\u00a0his executive order banning the entry of\u00a0citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries.
\u201cI hope they\u2019re not being wasted,\u201d Yoshihashi said of the veterans\u2019 sacrifices\u00a0during a recent interview in his San Gabriel home. \u201cThat order to ban all the Muslims \u2026 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right.\u201d
The uneasy parallels between two presidents and\u00a0two executive orders singling out a class of people were repeatedly invoked Saturday\u00a0at a packed Little Tokyo forum about the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. \u00a0
\u201cAs Japanese Americans who were directly affected by incarceration, we have a particular moral obligation to remind people that measures like the Muslim ban are not just unconstitutional, they are un-American,\u201d former U. S. Rep. Norman Mineta said in a statement delivered to the forum. \u201cThey \u2026 undermine the very thing that sets\u00a0our country apart: our enduring commitment to freedom and justice for all.\u201d\u00a0
The forum featured poems, songs and performances, along with remarks from African American, Jewish, Muslim\u00a0and Latina speakers who connected the Japanese American experience with\u00a0discrimination against their communities and vowed to fight intolerance together.\u00a0
The Japanese American National Museum, which hosted the forum with other community groups, opened an exhibit Saturday\u00a0on Roosevelt\u2019s order and its aftermath, featuring the first display on the West Coast of the\u00a0actual document bearing the president\u2019s signature.
The exhibit also features copies of the government orders for \u201call persons of Japanese ancestry\u201d to leave their neighborhoods along the West Coast and in Arizona, a timeline charting the community\u2019s experiences from Pearl Harbor to the closing of the last camp in 1946\u00a0and modern\u00a0art installations \u2014\u00a0including an arresting sculpture of the name tags of those interned.\u00a0
The forum and exhibit drew more than 2,000 visitors Saturday\u00a0 \u2014 a turnout that stunned museum officials, who set up multiple overflow rooms and still had to turn people away.\u00a0
\u201cIt\u2019s the confluence of energy\u201d around both the\u00a0anniversary and Trump\u2019s actions, said Clement Hanami, the museum\u2019s art director. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to help people see that in the end, the goal of our society is to really stand up for each other because at any time, it could be something that happens to us.\u201d
Visitors to the forum from across cultures and generations seemed to share that sentiment. Hollis Stewart, a 77-year-old retired computer specialist, said he came to stand for\u00a0\u201cpeace and justice\u201d at a time of growing national divisiveness. He\u00a0teared up as he recalled his father, a union organizer, taking him to visit the Gila River camp after it closed when he was 12 \u201cso I would understand that these things cannot be allowed.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s not who we are,\u201d Stewart said.
Leandra Culver and Rachael Stein, both twenty-somethings of Jewish heritage, said the Japanese American experience struck eerie and disturbing\u00a0parallels with their community\u2019s struggles against anti-Semitism and the current climate of \u201cfear-mongering and unjust actions.\u201d\u00a0
But they said their generation was confronting intolerance head-on. \u201cOur generation as millennials\u00a0is incredibly outspoken,\u201d Culver said. \u201cFacebook and Instagram are on fire every second of the day speaking out against the current administration, the Muslim ban and (for) women\u2019s rights.\u201d \u00a0
Among many Japanese Americans, the impact of Executive Order 9066 is reverberating across generations. \u00a0
Sumiko Seo Seki was a teenager at the time she and her family were forced to leave their San Pedro farm for incarceration in Jerome, Ark. One of her most vivid memories was her stoic father weeping as he pet\u00a0his horses goodbye \u2014\u00a0the first and only time she had ever seen him cry.\u00a0
The man who would become her husband, Don Seki, lied about his age so he could leave his native Hawaii and join the U. S. Army\u2019s 442nd Regimental Combat Team a\u00a0year early. He lost his left arm to German machine-gun fire a few days after his unit rescued a Texas infantry division trapped in the Vosges Mountains of France \u2014 suffering more than 800 casualties\u00a0to save 211 lives.
The family experiences have prompted their grandson, Evan Seki Matsuyama, to pursue a doctorate in U. S. history\u00a0at Oxford University to answer a question he said had long haunted him: \u00a0\u201cWhy did my grandfather lose his arm for a country that put my grandmother in a concentration camp?\u201d\u00a0
Matsuyama\u00a0said he hopes his research will honor his grandparents and help prevent history from repeating itself.
\u201cYou just can\u2019t target a group of people based on race, religion or culture,\u201d he said.
Mitchell T. Maki, president of a national nonprofit dedicated to education about the history of\u00a0Japanese American veterans of World War II , said he is optimistic that many Americans have learned those lessons. Although there are parallels between 1942 and 2017, he said, there are also crucial differences.
\u201cAmerica of today is different than the America of \u201942,\u201d said Maki, of the Go For Broke National Education Center. \u201cTo have people of all races and\u00a0religions coming together and standing against discriminatory practices is very inspiring.\u201d
He added that the veterans\u2019 sacrifices\u00a0were hardly wasted, as Yoshihashi wondered. \u201c\u2019They kept freedom and justice alive and it\u2019s incumbent on us to ensure they stay intact for all people.\u201d
Back in San Gabriel, Yoshihashi\u00a0shared\u00a0his stories and old photo albums of his childhood and Army days over green tea and rice crackers. He shrugged\u00a0off as \u201cnothing special\u201d a framed display of several of his military medals, badges\u00a0and a copy of the Congressional Gold Medal \u00a0\u2014\u00a0the nation\u2019s highest civilian honor \u00a0\u2014\u00a0awarded\u00a0to the Japanese American members\u00a0of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service in 2010.
After the war, he joined his family in Ohio for five years and returned to the Los Angeles area in 1951. He started a family, rebuilt engines for the Department of Water and Power and retired at 72.
With characteristic Nisei reticence, he paused\u00a0when asked what he wanted\u00a0America to learn on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066.
\u201cThat\u2019s tough,\u201d he said, resting his cheek in his hand.
\u201cI\u2019m just glad I went into the service and served my country.\u201d
An overflowing dam threatens homes in Northern California ,\u00a0 Adele’s big night at the Grammys ,\u00a0 Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn resigns ,\u00a0 Federal officials say they haven’t broadened the scope of immigration enforcement raids ,\u00a0 Enrique Marquez Jr. didn’t take part in the San Bernardino shooting on Dec. 2, 2015., Russia denies \u00a0that intelligence agents were in contact with Trump’s campaign team, and when the pastor at a Texas church urged his congregation to embrace refugees, 300 members left .\u00a0
Surveillance video footage shows the moment a hillside in the San Bernardino County mountains crumbles, sending rocks and snow into a drainage area below.
Alhambra Resident Sergio Aguierre talks about a tree that fell and smashed into power lines on Jackson Avenue during the storm\u00a0Friday.
A storm that officials said could be the strongest in years moved into Southern California on Friday.
At a press conference, President Trump shrugged off a rocky start. An executive order has been drafted to end protection for ‘Dreamers,’ \u00a0who were brought to the U. S. illegally as children. New York real estate scion Robert Durst confessed to killing a writer , a witness said in court. The Governors Ball after the Oscars \u00a0will be decked out for the stars.
At a press conference, President Trump shrugged off a rocky start. An executive order has been drafted to end protection for ‘Dreamers,’ \u00a0who were brought to the U. S. illegally as children. New York real estate scion Robert Durst confessed to killing a writer , a witness said in court. The Governors Ball after the Oscars \u00a0will be decked out for the stars.<\/p>\n