Over the July 4 weekend, I joined nearly 400 fellow pilgrims on the California-Oregon border for this year’s Tule Lake Pilgrimage. This site, unique among the World War II Japanese American prison camps, is where the federal government sent the protesters and war resisters — those deemed “troublemakers” and “disloyal” for speaking their minds.
The last time we gathered was six years ago, in 2018. At the time, Donald Trump was president, Stephen Miller led the White House’s immigration policy and national protests were raging against their cruel, intentional and racist policy of separating immigrant families. A multigenerational group — including Satsuki Ina, a Tsuru for Solidarity co-founder who was born at Tule Lake — and many other survivors of the Tule Lake Segregation Center joined in protest together (https://x.com/SaveTuleLake/status/1013157078204964864) with chants of “Kodomo no tame ni. They’re our children. Set them free!” Later in the pilgrimage, a group of activists and organizers gathered in a packed conference room (https://densho.org/catalyst/8-lessons-in-resistance-from-tule-lake/) to strategize. The group included Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress Co-Chair Kathy Masaoka, Korematsu Institute Executive Director Karen Korematsu, future Tsuru for Solidarity Co-Founder Mike Ishii, and myself.
In fact, many of the activists and organizers at that pilgrimage went on to play key roles in building Tsuru for Solidarity, which now organizes and helps activate progressive Japanese Americans nationwide.
Much has changed since 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic killed millions of people around the world, and Trump’s anti-Chinese rhetoric led to a dramatic rise in anti-Asian hate incidents. The police murder of George Floyd led to massive protests, and a reckoning on anti-Black racism and policing. Trump lost his bid for reelection, and despite the January 6 insurrection, failed to block Biden’s inauguration.
But many of the challenges remain all too familiar. 2020’s racial reckoning led to a backlash that included the recall of progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and new restrictions on the right to protest in many states. In a disturbing echo of the Chinese exclusion era of the 1800s, numerous state legislatures adopted alien land laws seeking to prohibit Chinese immigrants from owning land. And in his reelection campaign, Trump is floating proposals for militarized roundups of immigrants, mass detention camps and deportations without court hearings.
Even so, there is cause for hope. At this year’s pilgrimage, organizers from NCRR and Nikkei Progressives held a workshop — in the same room where we met in 2018. This year, we connected the Japanese American fight for redress to today’s fight to secure reparations for Black Americans. Miya Iwataki, traci kato-kiriyama and other organizers from NCRR and Nikkei Progressives led a session that began with how Japanese American survivors reclaimed their voices in the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians hearings, and ended with discussions of how Nikkei can support Black reparations.
The first step in our community healing was to publicly share our stories, even knowing that some would resist hearing the ugly truth. Author and self-styled historian Lillian Baker, who showed up at the CWRIC hearings to deny that Japanese Americans had suffered, even assaulted Nisei survivor James Kawaminami during his testimony and tried to grab his notes from his hands.
Today, we are in the midst of a similar exercise in public truth-telling and advocacy led by Black Americans. Last June, California’s Reparations Task Force released a first-in-the-nation report (https://oag.ca.gov/ab3121/report), drawing a throughline from the harm of 246 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow and racial terror, and decades more of continuing discrimination to the present reality in my home state. The report includes over 100 policy recommendations to repair the damage. Don Tamaki, who was part of the coram nobis team that overturned Fred Korematsu’s conviction, was the one non-Black member of the task force.
Since then, several members of the task force, including Don, have joined with the Equal Justice Society, California Black Power Network, and other civil rights groups have joined together as the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth. This multiracial, intergenerational, statewide coalition will use public education and policy campaigns to turn their recommendations into reality. This year, the group successfully advocated for ACA 8, which will amend the state constitution to prohibit any form of slavery, to appear on the November ballot.
At events for Tsuru for Solidarity, the Asian Law Caucus, and other API organizations, Don has shared his own journey in reckoning with racial injustice. He explains that “as long as the hate that originated in 1619 remains unaddressed, the racial hierarchy it spawns will numbingly recycle, poisoning the soul of the country … reparations is about dismantling an entire system, it’s about values that affect all of us.”
It’s time for us to do our part to remove that poison.
If you are interested in getting involved in the campaign for repair and healing in California, you can sign up for Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth e-mails at alliancefor.org.
Carl Takei, a Yonsei, is the program director for Community Safety at the Asian Law Caucus. He is a founding member of Tsuru for Solidarity and previously worked as a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he co-led the national organization’s shift toward divesting from police and reinvesting in communities, and fought abuses at the intersections of criminal legal and immigration enforcement systems. He can be reached at nichibei@carltakei.com. The views expressed in the preceding column are not necessarily those of the Nichi Bei News.
Nichi Bei News columnist Carl Takei, a Yonsei, is a senior staff attorney nd the Criminal Justice Reform Program manager at the Asian Law Caucus, co-chair of Tsuru for Solidarity. Previously, he was a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he co-led the national organization’s shift toward divesting from police and reinvesting in communities, and fought abuses at the intersections of criminal legal and immigration enforcement systems. You can follow him on Twitter at @carltakei, or reach him at nichibei@carltakei.com. The views expressed in the preceding column are not necessarily those of the Nichi Bei News nor the Asian Law Caucus.
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