Tag Archives: Japanese American

Gordon Hirabayashi, Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 93

Gordon Hirabayashi

Gordon Hirayabayashi, one of three resisters to the Japanese American internment, has died at 93. It was announced by Jay Hirabayashi, his son, who also said that his mother Esther, from whom Gordon was divorced, died the same day, about ten hours later. See the NY Times obituary here. Check this out:

When the West Coast curfew was imposed, ordering people of Japanese background to be home by 8 p.m., Mr. Hirabayashi ignored it. When the internment directive was put in place, he refused to register at a processing center and was jailed.

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Real Band of Brothers

Story about seven Japanese and Japanese American brothers on both sides of the war: Brothers went to war, but not all on the same side. Happy Veterans Day.

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Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story (Review)

bigWOWO Rating: Asian American Gold

Thanks to my local friend W who encouraged me to see this movie.  Watching movies is really hard with the kids (and I admit that I could only hear 80% of the first part of the movie with the kids running around my house), but I’m glad I set aside some time to see this one.  The movie was great.  It shared historical facts and interviews, along with modern day discussions on what constitutes a “person of color” and how Japanese Americans have embraced basketball.

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William Hohri, Rest in Peace

We need to remember our heroes.  Bill Hohri was a freedom fighter who was interned at Manzanar during the Japanese American internment.  When he got out, he refused to accept the government’s crimes, and he took them to court, asking for $210k for each survivor.  He ultimately lost the suit, but Reagan later signed a law giving each survivor $20,000.

Hohri’s group researched the law and detailed numerous constitutional violations. In 1983 he became the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, which charged that the federal government had “maliciously and unlawfully conspired” to imprison Japanese Americans in a campaign of “invidious racial discrimination.”

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Superbowl 44: Saints win!

What happened during that second half? I was cheering for the Saints, but I figured they were going to get blown out. I left for a dinner engagement after the second half when the Colts were winning 10-3, and then I find out that the Saints blew out the Colts. Wow. I missed an exciting second half.

Check out Scott Fujita above. He’s one the Saints’s linebackers. He’s a White guy with the last name “Fujita.”  His story is that he was adopted by a Japanese American father and Caucasian American mother, but he was raised Japanese. See some of the story here.  His father was born in an internment camp, and his grandfather fought for the 442nd.

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American jailed for trying to reclaim kids

art_father_wtvf From CNN: American Jailed for Trying to Reclaim Children.  More here.  We don’t know all the details of this story, but wow, what a story.  The American courts had declared dual custody of the children, and the Japanese ex-wife took them up and fled to Japan, despite the fact that the American ex-husband feared that she would do just that.  Because Japan is not a party to the Hague Convention, Japan is under no obligation to abide by any foreign court rulings.  The American guy flew to Japan, re-kidnapped his kids as they were with their mother, and then tried to drive to them to the U.S. Consulate.  Unfortunately for him, the Japanese police were waiting for him after being alerted by his ex-wife.  To his surprise, the US Consulate then refused to open the gates as he tried to run. Of course, we’re only getting the American guy’s perspective in all this since the wife isn’t here to plead her case to the American media, but this is certainly sad.  Now he’s stuck in a Japanese prison cell, possibly stuck for five years.

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Japanese American Internment

I found the above video of Oregon Poet Laureate Lawson Inada at another blog–Zuky.  Check it out.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Japanese American internment recently.  Not thinking as in forming theories and prescriptions, which is what I usually do, but thinking as in trying to get a mental picture of what happened and what it must have been like for the internees.  I’ve been “reading” the audio book version of Robert Asahina’s Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad.  I usually put audio books into my car stereo and listen whenever I drive.  Because I’ve been at home with the baby and haven’t spent much time in the car, I’ve been a slow “reader” for this particular book.  But so far, it’s very good, with lots of first person accounts and interviews.  I haven’t yet finished it, but I’d recommend checking it out.  Most of the reviews I’ve read have been positive.

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