The AACP Newsletter |
Asian American Curriculum Project, Inc. - Books for All Ages |
Since 1970 | AsianAmericanBooks.com | April 2005 |
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An Interview with Grace Shimizu By Leonard Chan and Philip Chin With Answer Contributions by Elinor Davis |
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Grace Shimizu and Elinor Davis are two of the organizers for the "Here, in America?" event. Here is our interview with Grace Shimizu.
Tell us about who you are and about the organization you work for. I am also coordinator of the Campaign For Justice: Redress Now For Japanese Latin Americans! (CFJ), which was formed in 1996 to secure redress from the US government for the human rights violations that were perpetrated against the Japanese Latin American internees during WWII. I am also project director of the groundbreaking traveling exhibit, "The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II," which is a unique collaborative effort by the German, Italian, Japanese American and Japanese Latin American communities to educate the public about the experiences of immigrants labeled "enemy aliens" during World War II and the parallels with current day concerns.
How did you become involved in this area? Do you have any direct connection with Japanese Latin American internees? My father was born in Hiroshima, Japan and immigrated to Peru when he was a teenager in the 1920s. During World War II, he was apprehended, transported to a US military base in Panama and put to hard labor and then incarcerated at a Department of Justice internment camp in Crystal City, Texas. His first wife passed away in the camp. One cousin was used in the second hostage exchange. After the war, my uncle and his family were deported to war-devastated Japan with the destination of Hiroshima. My father fought deportation and remained in the US with the hope of returning to Peru. My father passed away last year at the age of 97.
Will there be a session where debates and discussion will go on and where the audience will be allowed to participate? We want to give all the participants their full allotted time slot to present their testimony uninterrupted. Some of these people have never spoken publicly about their experiences before and this may be our last chance to document these WWII stories from first-hand, living memory.
What are your goals?
Your flyer mentions that the testimonies will be submitted to the US Congress and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR is a body of the Organization of American States). What would you like to see these organizations do with this historical record? I hope the House Judiciary Committee of the US Congress would review these personal testimonies and organize a Congressional hearing of "The Wartime Parity and Justice Act" (HR 893), introduced by Rep. Xavier Becerra (CA-31). This bill would grant proper redress to an estimated 1200 Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans who have been excluded from the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (CLA). It would also fulfill the educational mandate of the CLA by reestablishing the public education fund with the $45 million which was promised to the Japanese American community and the American people. Another bill, the Wartime Treatment Study Act, would establish two commissions: one to review the U.S. government policies regarding resident aliens and U.S. citizens as well as Latin Americans of German and Italian descent, and the other to review the government's refusal to allow Jewish refugees fleeing persecution to enter the U.S. during WWII. I also understand that the "Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act" was signed into law in November 2000, acknowledging the fundamental injustices suffered by Italian Americans during World War II. However, the mandate for a proper apology and public education about these events has yet to be implemented. As for litigation, the Japanese Latin Americans have gone through the US court system and are now appealing to the international community for justice. Art Shibayama, his two brothers, and the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project have submitted a petition to the IACHR, seeking to hold the US government accountable for the ongoing failure to provide redress for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Documentation of the hidden history of WWII and the lessons for present day concerns is important and significant not only for the people of the US but for all people around the world who uphold truth and justice.
Are you also hoping that the Latin American countries that turned over Japanese to the US provide some sort of apology and restitution too?
Does the OAS have any pull with our government in trying to get them to provide for restitution? It is truly a disgrace that the US government continues to use tax-payers' money to fight the Japanese Latin American internees. If the IACHR determines that it has jurisdiction over our petition, there is no guarantee that the US government will honor the decision by this international commission. A ruling by the IACHR in favor of our internees would be an important legal precedent and moral victory. Regardless of the outcome, we hope to inform the people of the US and the world about this shameful hidden history. And we urge our elected officials to provide proper acknowledgment and redress—and to do it before all our former internees have passed away.
Tell us about the people addressed by your conference and how many were there? Note that Japanese were brought from 13 different Latin countries. Germans were brought from 15 countries (the same 13 plus 2 more that didn't send any Japanese). None came from the largest Latin countries like Brazil, because they had their own internal programs for aliens. The smaller countries "outsourced" their internment to the U.S. Our event deals with the 3rd category, the Enemy Alien Program operated by the Dept. of Justice (DOJ). DOJ records indicate 32,000 people were processed through DOJ detention/internment camps: over 11,000 Germans (4,058 of whom were brought from Latin American), about 4,000 Italians (288 from Latin American) & about 16,000 Japanese (2,264 from Latin American). "Enemy alien" Japanese, German & Italian immigrants living in the U.S. were picked up starting on Dec 7, 1941, based on FBI lists & INS registration records. When the whole west coast Japanese community was ordered to relocate (Executive Order 9066, Feb 19, 1942), most of the Japanese American enemy aliens were moved into one of the 10 WRA camps where their families were & thus got redress in 1988. The German & Italian aliens living in the U.S. & the Latin American Japanese, Germans & Italians remained in DOJ camps & were excluded from the redress legislation. Altogether, about a million immigrants of German, Italian and Japanese descent were affected by "alien enemy" policies like registration, relocation, curfews, travel restrictions, confiscation of property, freezing of bank accounts and loss of employment. The FBI raided people's homes and seized "contraband" like cameras, flashlights and shortwave radios. Joe DiMaggio's father's fishing boat was taken over by the Coast Guard and he wasn't able to fish to support his family.
Where were they interned? |
Crystal City Internment Camp, originally a former migrant farm workers' camp, was the largest family camp which officially closed in February 1948.
1948? Why were the internment camps closed so long after the end of the war?
Were some of people incarcerated at the DOJ camps US citizens and roughly what percentage? It's been hard to find out exactly how many internees were actually U.S. citizens, or citizens of Peru or one of the other Latin countries, but it was a sizeable number. This is an area for more research. Some of them will be testifying at the Assembly and their stories are pretty harrowing. There were also a few naturalized U.S. citizens of German and Italian descent who were "de-naturalized" and then interned. Some people may have a sense or belief that anyone that was incarcerated was there for a legitimate purposes - like now, some people think that all the people taken away post 9/11 were in some way connected with terrorism. The term "Enemy Alien" even has a guilty connotation. Authors such as Michelle Malkin, for example, are even stating that the Internment was justified.
What's the real story with these people that were interned? Was there any evidence to the extent of their collaboration or non-collaboration with the axis countries? The internees in the US and from Latin America were rounded up because their names had been put on lists of "potentially dangerous persons" by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI during the 1930s. People on the lists were priests, language teachers, newspaper editors and reporters, business owners who had business dealings with their country of origin and other community leaders who might have financial or political influence in their respective communities. Some were reported by neighbors or acquaintances who simply thought them "suspicious" because of their accents or religious and cultural activities. None were accused of any crimes. 81 of the Germans interned were actually Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution to Latin America, only to be seized and interned in the US for the purpose of being sent back to Germany in the exchange. Yes, the term "enemy alien" sounds negative, but unfortunately it's the legal term for them and it's shorter than "immigrants from countries upon which the U.S. has declared war."
As we see today with the post 9/11 people being locked up - is it even harder to defend the civil liberties of non-citizens and is this why apologies and restitution is so hard to win for the people addressed by your conference?
What about the individuals that were sent back to Japan, Germany, or Italy and never came back - is there an effort being made to record their stories? As the public awareness is growing about the US internment of German and Italians during WWII, there is more interest in preserving their stories. Slowly we are learning more about the Germans and Italians who were deported. Many of them eventually were able to come back to the U.S. after the war, but their lives were never the same. After all these years, there is still a sense of shame and fear that has kept them from talking about all this.
Tell us about the interned Japanese Americans that were not redressed? Explain about the erroneous cut off date?
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The following books are discounted for subscribers to our newsletter. The discounts on these books end May 5, 2005. |
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Amelia to Zora
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Loyola Chin and the San Peligran OrderBy Gene Yang2004, 100 pages, Paperback. In this whimsical comic book Loyola Chin discovers other realms through her dreams. In one of these journeys she meets a mysterious otherworldly man who has strange plans to save the world.
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