Before internment
Re “They stood up,” Sept. 10
I got quite emotional reading the article on the resistance in Monterey to Japanese American internment.
My mother grew up near Cannery Row in Monterey. Her father was known as the potato king of Carmel Valley. My father grew up managing his father’s farm in San Luis Obispo. Restricted by the race-based California Alien Land Law from owning the land they worked, the families were tenant farmers.
Both families were displaced twice. The initial exclusion order evicted them from the coast; later, Executive Order 9066 put the families on trains to the Arizona desert. My parents met and married in the internment camp called Poston 3 in Arizona. They resided in Denver until they could return to the Monterey Peninsula.
Did my parents see the petition of welcome? They might have heard of it and even based their return on it. They never did tell my brother and me why they went back to Monterey.
My whole life I have admired the writings of John Steinbeck and the scientific work of Ed “Doc” Ricketts. Their public support for people like my parents only deepens my esteem for them. Gobind Tanaka Eagle Rock
Time has a way of healing wounds and softening the memories of experiences endured during one’s life. The history of the unjustified and discriminatory treatment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast after the bombing of Pearl Harbor is one that should never be forgotten.
The Go For Broke National Education Center should be praised for its efforts to inform the public of the courageous acts by a minority of white Americans who stood up against the venomous voices and media that played their part in fomenting the racism.
The Monterey Peninsula Herald was not the only newspaper guilty of stirring resentment and fear. Based on the news clippings saved by my mother, a second-generation Japanese American, our own Los Angeles Times participated in the fomenting of hysteria and racism. Larry Naritomi
Monterey Park