(Untitled)

[zhai]

I think most people in the US have a family connection to a veteran, and I have a couple of them, in addition to family members currently serving... my uncle Jerry is a decorated Marine veteran of Korea and Vietnam... but I feel a stronger cultural connection to the Japanese veterans who came out of the internment camps directly to serve in the

Comments

[brennye]

America as a political unit has been very stupid during her growth as a country. We still see that today. I will never be surprised at anything that comes out of our history. We may not have had the holocaust here, but we did have bits and pieces of it throughout our history, and that *has* to be remembered. Or else we're doomed to do it again. Or worse, not be in a position to stop something like the Holocaust from happening here.

meep.. sorry.. *hugs* give your grandfather a hug from me next time you see him, k?

[zhai]

We got closer to repeating it than I like to think about, right after 2001. Camps were actually brought up in Washington, and the JACL as a single unit raised holy hell about it before it got shut down. It's unbelievable what people will do when they're scared.

And will do. ;) We're going back down next weekend for the 25th year service in memory of his mother, so we'll be down there soon.

[brennye]

now that I've had a chance to sleep on this, I remember the noise about the camps in 2001 and registration and stuff like that. I was one of those screaming about it too.

btw, did you know there were several southern states who were hosts to prisoner of war camps in the 40's? Mostly german farmboys, but some of the bigger, nastier units went there too. And many of them stayed after they were released.

Cool. *sigh* I envy you your big family. mine's big too, but we're not as close as yours.

[zhai]

There were PoW camps out there and there was actually a very large Japanese internment camp in Arkansas. The people there fought like crazy to not get it put there, but once they realized that the large volume of people and soldiers there would bring them revenue, they mysteriously stopped complaining. But they did insist that, even after the war, it would be prohibited for any of the Japanese there to get jobs in Arkansas, if you can believe that. So they kept them destitute. The camp there was huge -- and the population of Arkansas was small -- such that at one time the Arkansas camp was the third largest "city" in the state.

[mama_gryphon]

Sometimes I wonder if the government 'overlooks' Asian Americans and their contributions like this, simply because we don't raise a fuss. Thousands helped to build the railroad across the country, and have served in the military service as well as the internment camps and no one ever talks about it. There are no history lessons and there should be. Just because no ruckus was made doesn't mean they should take for granted the incredible suffering and contributions made. Truly, the more I think of things like this and look at what we're doing now the more this country saddens me.

[zhai]

I have no doubt that the government does overlook Asian-Americans for exactly that reason. That's why it took so long -- over thirty years, nearly forty -- for any apology to be offered for the greatest crime ever committed by the American government against its own citizens. And it took even longer, until 2000, for the 442nd to be recognized for all it had done in WW2

[mama_gryphon]

That reminds me of my Aunt in Taiwan who chastized my mother for not teaching me Taiwanese, aside from a few phrases and the occasional bad word. I didn't learn the language but sometimes I think I'm more Asian than my brother and my sister who did get a chance to grow up there a little bit. Too white to be Asian and too Asian to be white. It's the pride that gets us every time, but I believe as long as we remember and pass that down to our children, etc. someone will always know and be aware of Asian contributions to America.

[zhai]

Well said.

Too white to be Asian and too Asian to be white

Man, I feel you there. In high school I had more than one group of friends that I kind of shifted around between, and it was interesting to get their perspectives... the Asian ones all thought of me as Caucasian, the Caucasian ones all thought of me as Asian. And some were confused and thought I was Filipino. =P ;) Or Native American, I get that a lot.

If you're interested, there's actually an online forum and website that I found last year. It was started as a forum of specifically half-Japanese, but it's gone to just half-Asian in general now. It has a webpage full of celebrities/famous people who are half-Asian:

http://www.hapas.com/

[sillermoon]

Very nicely written, and interesting also. I did learn about the internment camps in high school, but I'm sure many schools don't bother teaching it. And so many Americans don't care about history, the figures about them not knowing about the WWII internment don't really surprise me.

[zhai]

My middle school did a whole small unit on the internment camps, but that was probably because it's something of a San Diego-specific issue because there were so many people who had parents or grandparents who were actually IN the camps. I have a tape of a 60 Minutes episode where my grandfather was interviewed, and I remember we watched it during that WW2 unit in school.

I guess if I try to think about it objectively the figures don't really surprise me, but to just stumble across that number randomly, it was really shocking. It's practically one in every three people. I guess there's the danger in living too much inside one's own perspective -- that's why we need Jay Leno around to randomly quiz people on the street and find out what astounding number of people can't even name the vice president or whatnot. ;)

[t_rex]

Hope you don' t mind if I link to this.

[zhai]

Not at all. The more who know about these guys the better, far as I'm concerned. =)

[tripper]

I have a friend who is first generation American. His mother and father escaped from Maoist China and he is named after the man who gave his passport to his father, so they could get out.

He speaks Chinese (Cantonese, I believe), but doesn't read it. He's an amazing blend of American and Chinese. American in the things he likes to do, but very Chinese in duty to his parents. He gave up on marrying a girl (white) who wanted to put his mother in a nursing home or have her live with relatives after they got married. We (all his friends) were completely appalled that she would even suggest this, we couldn't imagine the house without his mother (we all call her Mai) in it.