Detentions today remind of yesterday’s
By L.A. Chung for the San Jose Mercury News
Critics have scoffed at protesters’ comparisons of the detentions with the well-known internment camps that detained 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1946.
Successive restrictions
But ask someone who is intimately familiar with the events affecting the Japanese-American community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The initial calls not to blame a community. The gradual restrictions. Curfews. Registration. Finally, internment…
Lest we forget. It is time to turn up the volume. Next Friday, at the INS building in San Francisco.
More on the protest going on all next week in front of INS Buildings all around the country!
Posted on Fri, Jan. 03, 2003 story:PUB_DESC
Detentions today remind of yesterday’s
By L.A. Chung
Mercury News Staff Columnist
It could be a page out of Kafka. Or Orwell.
. . . Or U.S. history.
While many of us were engrossed in pre-Christmas festivities with our families, others here and around the country were trying to figure out just where their husbands, brothers or sons had disappeared to and whether they would ever see them again.
John Tateishi read the accounts about Silicon Valley tech workers and Southern California men who vanished in the INS’ clutches after showing up at the agency to register — as required by our hastily passed USA Patriot Act. It smacked of America, circa 1942, the reactive, ugly side.
“I was appalled,” said the executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League. “I felt really bad for the families. Until you go through it, it’s hard to understand.”
Critics have scoffed at protesters’ comparisons of the detentions with the well-known internment camps that detained 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1946.
Successive restrictions
But ask someone who is intimately familiar with the events affecting the Japanese-American community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The initial calls not to blame a community. The gradual restrictions. Curfews. Registration. Finally, internment.
Tateishi was 3 when his family in Los Angeles was shipped off to Manzanar, a barren California camp. As national director of the JACL’s campaign for redress and reparations, he heard story after story of children who saw their fathers taken away, wives left with children to feed and no means of support. He wrote their oral histories in a 1984 book, “And Justice For All,” now published by the University of Washington Press.
The modern version of our government behaving badly erupted in full view when distraught families took to the streets in Los Angeles in December, where a large number of Iranians had been detained after reporting. Men and boys over 16 who were born in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan were required to register with the INS and submit to fingerprinting and questioning by Dec. 16.
But hundreds were detained and flown from state to state in search of large enough detention facilities, some because of minor infractions like being two days late to register. Others were detained because their immigration files were “out of status” — in some cases because of the INS’ own backlog.
They were Muslims. And Christians. And Jews. Some had come here to escape persecution. They were not, as far as any officials have hinted, related to terrorists.
To be sure, such detentions can’t match the scale of the mass internment of Japanese-Americans, and the lesser-known internment of some 10,000 Germans and 3,000 Italians for several years during World War II. Many of those detained this time were returned to their families around Christmas, but will have to report back for deportation hearings.
Harbinger or history?
But the detentions do recall the incarceration of some 31,000 “enemy aliens” — mostly Japanese, but also Germans, Italians and other Europeans — that preceded internment.
Some came into government offices when asked. Others were picked up by the FBI. Sound familiar?
“The Issei put on their Sunday suits with a tie, and reported to government buildings — and then were never heard from for months and months,” said Tateishi, referring to the first-generation Japanese, who were barred by law from citizenship.
So, who would blame the next group of men and boys from 13 other countries who must register next Friday for fearing what will happen? How can we insist on fair play?
“When you look at the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans, it didn’t make Americans safer,” said Tateishi. “It didn’t make one iota of difference. Yet it cost the country millions and millions of dollars, and they were misplaced resources.”
Lest we forget. It is time to turn up the volume. Next Friday, at the INS building in San Francisco.
Contact L.A. Chung at lchung@ sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5280.
Unfortunately I was born in Pakistan. Been in the country for 8 years. Did my MBA in finance and than started working for a multi national company in Chicago. Got married and have 2 small children who are born Citizens. I am on an H1 and in the process of changing status I-485. This registration process is really trouble some for me as I think only those will go to register who have nothing to do with terrorism etc and who want to have a good life in this country. Who want to be in this land of oppertunity to bring a good future to their family and live a nice and decent life LIKE MYSELF. I strongly beleive that people who have bad intentions will never report to INS. I also think that it is window dressing to show the American people that something is being done. This will not serve any purpose.
When I think of this special registration, the first word that comes to mind is “roundup”. Just as Lisa mentioned above, some 120,000 Japanese Americans were detained into concentration camps during the WWII.
Question is : What was the outcome of that inhumane act back then? Let me guess, creation of hatrate in the minds of millions of people worldwide.
In the aftermath of September Eleventh, our honorable president GWB announced that US Government needs to keep a very close watch on those people that come into this country with non immigrant visas. He stated “We need to know where those folks are staying, what they are up to and are they leaving this country when they said they will?”. In an effort to enforce this idea “Special Registration” program was created.
My next blatant question to the president would be “Mr. Bush, if you were a potential terrorist or an individual with harmful intentions, would you let the U.S. Government keep a close eye on you through this special registration procedure?”
The straight answer is “NO”. Which means there is no way in the hell, a potential terrorist will go register himself in the special registration.
Now who will go to this “Special registration”? As Mr. Mansoor Ahmed mentioned in the above message “Those will go to register who have nothing to do with terrorism etc and who want to have a good life in this country.” Another words, those “peace loving” individuals that came to this country for “freedom” to live in peace, “freedom” to make a better life for themselves and their families. Those law abiding individuals that are willing to co-operate with the U.S. Government to ensure security and fight terrorism for this country.
And what did they get in return of their willingness to co-operate and contribute toward the battle of terrorism? Harassment, detention, extreme mental agony, anguish and frustration!!! Thousands of fathers, brothers and children have been separated from their families in the name of this special registration atrocity. This is how the U.S. Government paid them back in return of their willingness to co-operate. This is just one example how the U.S. Government create hatrate in the minds of billions of people worldwide!
As a patriot American, I demand that U.S. Government stop this nonsense at once! If they must continue with this “Special Registration” brutality, then at least treat the registrars nice and with respect. If an individual is in any kind of violation of his INS status, then assign a case number for him and work with him in future. Once again, these are law abiding co-operating peace loving individuals. They do not deserve to be restrained like felons and be put in the deportation procedure. If U.S. Government wants to adopt an effective method to fight terrorism, then these individuals are needed to be treated with respect. Otherwise, the treatment they are giving to these people right now, are arousing more and more hatrate among millions of people worldwide just like it did during the Second World War and will contribute to more terrorist acts against the U.S. And this is just another example of how the treacherous acts of the U.S. Government invoke acts of terrorism and leads this great nation toward harms way!!
Citizenship has its privilages. It might be great to know your enemies but its also good to know your friends. If they are here illegaly it doesn’t matter what their intentions are, the’re here ILLEGALY. It’s is a giant leap from today to 1942 levels, Don’t get all freaked out because the first step seems “familiar?” And as to the “outcome of that inhumane act back then? Let me guess, creation of hatrate in the minds of millions of people worldwide.” Facts prove the Japanese are one our best allies, most stable banking partners, and largest export/import partners. Don’t post things in the name of others if you don’t look and see what your talking about.
And I as a patriot American, I demand that U.S. Government get those who hate this country out of it, protect me from my enemies, our enemies. For there are those out there who have lived lies under repressive religious, political, racial, dictatorial schemes that have produced cowards to weak to fight head on and must sneak like cockroaches into our homes and kill us along with themselves. If they played perfectly fair so would we. We must stay viligant on all sides.
And yes, something is being done, whether you see its purpose on or not, it does’nt matter. You don’t work there. You don’t have a clue whats going on there, only what the mass media tells you. Would you rather nothing be done and just live in a war state like Iserael, sucide bombing on a weekly basisor would you like to have some semblence of peace