‘We cannot let it’ happen again
Japantown marchers honor survivors of WWII internment camps
SAN JOSE — As survivors and the descendants of those held in internment camps marched solemnly Sunday evening through Japantown, commemorating 75 years since a shameful chapter of the nation’s history was signed into action, many participants sensed a parallel to the current political landscape.
Sherri Kawazoye’s husband was one of 120,000 people of Japanese descent placed in 11 camps in seven states after Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, amid a wave of paranoia following the Pearl Harbor attack that ushered in formal U.S. involvement in World War II.
“It could happen again, and we cannot let it,” said Kawazoye, 78, of Los Altos.
Reports from the past week
that the Trump administration considered deploying thousands of National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants evoked comparison for those attending the 37th annual San Jose Day of Remembrance at San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin. In recent years, organizer Nohonmachi Outreach Committee had turned its attention to combat the vilifying of Muslim-American citizens post 9/11, but found the recent developments dovetailing with the event’s original purpose.
Worry about recent executive actions by President Donald Trump — including a travel ban affecting seven majority-Muslim countries — spurred a record event turnout of more than 700 composed of people from all walks of life and religious faiths.
“‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ is not followed by ‘except those from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya,’” said Athar Siddiqee, president of the South Bay Islamic Association, referencing the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
The assembled crowd, which was nearly triple the typical turnout for the event, created a powerful scene as they carried on their tradition of walking the streets of Japantown in a quiet loop, their faces illuminated by candles carried in glasses.
Jimi Yamaichi, a renowned figure in the Japantown community, recalled to the audience his experience of confinement in an internment camp as a young man and his famous resistance to being drafted to fight for the country that had classified him as an enemy. He would eventually be exonerated of the federal charge but still spent three years at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in northern Wyoming.
Yamaichi said the country is “fragile” at the moment and cannot give in to the same kind of impulses that spurred the imprisonment of his family and community.
“We’re all immigrants,” he said. “We should not pit one against another.”
Kawazoye said her family fled to Colorado to avoid the same fate. But she recalled feeling little relief and a similar sense of isolation, including being constantly singled out at school. Rocks were thrown at her house.
“Even though we were not fenced in by barbed wire, we were fenced in by the community,” she said.
Former Rep. Mike Honda, a longtime fixture of South Bay politics, warned that there are still technically laws in place that could empower the president to pursue his travel ban and crack down on illegal immigrants, most notably the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It’s an example, he said, of the need to formally purge those laws.
“Everybody is sensitive that this might happen again, and it could. It’s on the books,” he said. “We have to flex our muscle as citizens to have Congress change that law. Or we can defy the law by civilly disobeying the law to bring about that change.”
Samina Masood, executive director of the anti-discrimination nonprofit Silicon Valley FACES, recalled a raid on her home nearly 20 years ago that she says was spurred by suspicions she was not in the country legally, even though she had all the proper credentials. She said the progress she has made since, including two college-educated children, feels threatened by recent actions.
“I thought that nightmare was behind us until 2017,” she said. “I can’t help but feel ill at ease about what’s happening.”
Masood stressed that if the country does not change course, history will look at the current era as unkindly as it does Japanese internment.
“Our collective actions will be recorded in the archives of history,” she said. “We have a long fight ahead of us.”