Some of you probably know that the Japanese American Citizens League made a historic move at their last convention, which was held earlier this summer. They presented a resolution of apology to the Tule Lake resisters, which was passed overwhelmingly, by over 80 percent of the delegates, an indication of the sentiments of most of […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Dear JAVA, where is your sense of compassion and understanding?
October 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment
JACL votes to apologize to ‘Tule Lake resisters’
August 29, 2019 by Leave a Comment
The Japanese American Citizens League voted Aug. 3 at its 50th National Convention in Salt Lake City to offer an apology to the “Tule Lake resisters” for its past ostracism of the group of protestors in the Northern California barbed wire concentration camp during World War II. The contentious resolution addressing the national civil rights […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: Hoping for an apology
August 1, 2019 by Leave a Comment
By the time this column is published, the 2019 Japanese American Citizens League National Convention will be just underway, so I write this not knowing what happened. I am concerned about the proposed resolution asking the organization to issue an apology to all Japanese Americans who were hurt and injured in various ways by individuals […]
Japanese American Citizens League considers apology to Tule Lake resisters
July 18, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Nearly two decades after passing a resolution addressing its past skeletons, a national Japanese American organization is once again set to confront its controversial actions during the war. The National Council of the Japanese American Citizens League plans to discuss a resolution to apologize to the Tule Lake resisters at the 50th JACL National Convention […]
An ‘immersion’ into Terminal Island Nikkei lives
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
TERMINAL ISLAND: LOST COMMUNITIES OF LOS ANGELES HARBOR By Naomi Hirahara and Geraldine Knatz (Santa Monica, Calif.: Angel City Press, 2015, 288 pp., $35, paperback) As an oral historian, I have always been addicted to reading obituaries, especially those relating to the World War II Japanese American experience. For example, a recent transfixing obituary for […]
Suyama Project seeks stories of WWII protests
February 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES — United States residents of Japanese ancestry, who reportedly endured without protest the forced relocation from their West Coast homes and incarceration in U.S.-style concentration camps after Japan’s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, have been stereotyped for decades as “quiet Americans.” Contradicting this image were the hundreds of Nikkei who protested against […]
OUT OF THE SHADOWS OF INFAMY: Nikkei resistance during World War II
January 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Contrary to the stereotype that Japanese Americans during World War II never questioned the constitutionality of the United States concentration camps and willingly went in to the camps and even served in the Army from the camps, hundreds of Japanese Americans took part in all forms of protests, including legal, as well as physical ones. […]
‘Tim’ Nomiyama, a Nisei military resister, dies
December 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Tetsuo “Tim” Nomiyama, a Kibei Nisei military resister, passed away on Dec. 10, 2012 at the age of 96. Nomiyama was born on Jan. 20, 1916 in Alameda, Calif. Around the age of 4 or 5, his parents sent him to their ancestral home in Fukuoka Prefecture to receive a Japanese education. When Nomiyama returned […]
Setting the record straight on ‘Allegiance’
November 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The play “Allegiance” attempts to promote sympathy for those who answered no to loyalty questionnaire questions or refused induction into the U.S. Army (aka “resisters”) by seeking to taint the reputation of those who volunteered to serve in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), a segregated Japanese American combat unit formed in the U.S. Army […]
JACL apologizes to Tule Lake incarcerees
The new generation of JACL leaders and members should be congratulated for acknowledging and understanding the need for voting in favor of the resolution offering a sincere apology to Tule Lake incarcerees. The National Council of the JACL took the action on Aug. 3, 2019, at their national convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. In […]