This footage is from the protest in front of the INS building that took place from noon to 1pm at 444 Washington Street in San Francisco on June 13, 2003.

Speaker: Reverend John Oda
Organization: Pine United Methodist Church

Reverend John Oda in San Francisco (Small - 18 MB)
Audio - Reverend John Oda in San Francisco (MP3 - 6 MB)

Reverend John Oda, Pine United Methodist Church

(Excerpt) What is happening with the deportation fo 13,000 individuals is wrong. It's unjust. It's immoral.

I'm here as an American Citizen to stand by my brothers and sisters and say that this is not right. My parents, my aunts and uncles and my grandparents were all interned during World War II. During WW II, they voluntarily cooperated with the United States government thinking that they would get fair treatment. They were thrown into concentration camps in the middle of the desert.

My mother, who was about 4 years old, tells stories of being completely ostracized by her friends, by her neighbors, by the community. Just because they were of Japanese-American heritage. Just because Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.

So what the Bush Administration is doing is causing mass paranoia in the country. It is causing communities to be divided. It is causing all of us to look around and wonder whether that person or this person is our friend of our foe. I'm here as a person of faith to say "that's not the way that we elimintae terrorism. How we eliminate terrorism is through acceptance and through love. It's through love. It's through hope...

As a person in the Japanese-American community I know that my parents continue to feel the sting of that injustice, how they were ostracized. And I'm hoping that all of you will go out and educate your communities -- educate your neighbors about this immoral deportation. And to let everyone know that they're not alone in their protest of this immoral government.

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