Editor’s Note: Chizu Omori is a Wakasa Memorial Committee member. James Hatsuaki Wakasa probably would have been astonished by the recognition and appreciation events attendees bestowed upon him in April in San Francisco and Delta, Utah. Wakasa was murdered at age 63 by a soldier in a watch tower at the Topaz (Central Utah) concentration […]
Rabbit Ramblings
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Events honor James Wakasa, inmate who was killed at Topaz, but questions remain about future of his memorial
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Change is the only constant
What is going to happen next year? I don’t know about everyone else, but I am feeling somewhat upset by the way things went over these last few years. We are still coping with the plague of COVID-19. We watched on live TV a large and terrifying mob storm the U.S. Capitol, trying to interfere […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Sorrow over the Topaz Museum board’s outreach
I can’t express my sorrow over the six meetings the Topaz Museum board held in August to ask the community for input concerning the Wakasa memorial stone. They held four meetings in person and two virtually. They held the first two in the Bay Area, a virtual meeting and then one in Delta, Utah. Next, […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Painful reminders of the past and present
Ah, the good news. The Warriors are on a winning streak, and they are so much fun to watch. We can watch some incredible athletes perform on the court and cheer them on a couple of times a week — what a respite from the news. We can forget about COVID, the threats to our democratic […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: The ‘desecration of sacred ground’ at Topaz
I imagine many of you know the story of James Hatsuaki Wakasa, the man who a sentry killed while Wakasa was walking with his dog along the barbed wire fence surrounding the Topaz (Central Utah) incarceration camp during World War II. This happened on April 11, 1943, during the period when camp inmates were being […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Reuniting and continuing the fight
As we slowly come out from the pandemic lockdown, I’m sure that everybody is heaving a big sigh of relief and doing things that were forbidden for so long. And looking back at that period when one couldn’t travel, have gatherings or run around doing ordinary things, what could we do? Well, we learned to […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: On hopeful and precarious developments
Since the last year has been so terrible, I haven’t written a regular column in a while. Rather than complain about things, I decided to keep quiet. But we’ve had several positive and hopeful events, the first being the election of President Joe Biden and the very narrow victory of Democrats in Congress, which was […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: The fight continues
I guess we can say “Happy New Year” without feeling totally hypocritical at this time. The year that we just lived through has been so different from any that most of us have experienced that one can hardly find words to describe it. As of this writing, there are record breaking numbers of people catching […]
Rabbit Rambling: Hoping and coping
I’ve taken some time off from this column because it was hard for me to feel that I had something sensible to say about what we have been living through. It’s as though we’re experiencing a slow, rolling earthquake that sends periodic shakes and shudders. We can’t tell when the next jolt will come or […]
Rabbit Ramblings: Renewing the call to action in 2020
The year 2020 promises to be very eventful. Our community will be extra busy with many pilgrimages and activities planned, including a gathering in Washington, D.C. in June organized by Tsuru For Solidarity. Our goal is to get as many of us — American Japanese, camp survivors and descendants of camp inmates, plus anyone else […]
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