#japanese internment camps

[rabbitcruiser]

On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court put an end to Japanese internment camps with its ruling in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, the court stated the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The following month, Japanese American “evacuees” from the West Coast were finally allowed to return to their homes. The last camp did not close until March 1946.

[nevinslibrary]

Comic Book Saturday

I believe that I was recommended this by some algorithm or other because I had read, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. Makes some sense, since they’re both about Japanese internment camps in the 1940s. But, that’s sorta where the similarities stop. Kiku isn’t from the 1940s, she’s pulled there while on vacation in San Francisco. And, it’s not just any internment camp that she winds up in, but, the one that her Grandmother was in. Suddenly she’s bearing witness and going through all that her Grandmother went through, the experiences that are not quite like anything else that had happened in the US.

The graphic novel was very intense. I’d have thought that doing it in the graphic novel format might make it hit less hard, but, it doesn’t. The story hits hard, partially because of the text, as well as because of the beautiful, beautiful art in it also.

You may like this book If you Liked: Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson, Take What You Can Carry by Kevin C. Pyle, or They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

Displacement by Kiku Hughes

[curiousorigins]

Honestly though to, supporting people making good changes is how we make the world better. Not through exclusion. My grandma was racist and was raised by a racist and all that.

She realized at some point that things were very unfair.

It started with a jury trail that she got assigned to be a juror, a man and woman were killed because they walked together at their local park. They did it pretty much every morning and seemed to be close friends. (I have no idea of the actual time period because it could have happened in the last 70 years and I can’t ask her anymore.) They weren’t dating (fair chance this was when interracial marriage was illegal in the U.S.) or anything ‘objectionable’. Just walking and talking at a park most mornings.

Someone killed both of them because it was a white woman and a black man.

Completely innocent upstanding people killed because they were friends with each other in a sometimes public space.

That was the beginning of her changing her viewpoints. And yes, it took her a while. She was born in 1930, born to parents born much earlier. Who’s parents most likely had slaves. (Deep South.)

She was open with her former unkind and indecent views because she believed she was wrong and that people can make mistakes but pretending they were never there didn’t help anything. She had around 60ish grandchildren who ended up asking her details about just how racist people were in our area (rarely brought up during any discussion of the Civil Rights Movement in American and with reason.) and what it was like walking around with all those racists. She explained that it was considered common knowledge and that she learned different.

She was never proud of it, she was ashamed. She told us stuff that her Dad taught her. (Oddly her mother never came up in those discussions so I assume she wasn’t an overt racist like her father was.) And one by one the many ways she learned better. The wonderful kind people that she had met that enriched her life who she would have not let them in had they come in at a different time in her life.

And you know what? My grandma was one of the most important loved and loving people in my life. She taught me that kindness is key. That assumptions aren’t good to act on. That most of the time just talking to people will get you a new friend and expand your perspective. The fact that someone who I had looked so up to had fell for the racists stereotypes, opened my eyes. I realized that even kind people can fall for that. Smart well read people (she was former school librarian and had a college degree) can’t always think themselves out of these terrible biases on their own. But most of all, she taught me that people are fallible. That you can be wrong, so very wrong and what matters is being open to changing your mind when you receive information that goes against what you have always seen as fact and common sense.

That you can always get better. Learn to be kinder. Open yourself up to more love and culture. And just do your best to be a decent human being. And that starts by extending a hand.

It’s easy to paint people bad with a broad brush, but that doesn’t make us examine our own biases. That doesn’t make us kinder. And indeed we may think we can root out all hate with exclusion but that is not true. The best way to do it is love. My grandma was friends with a Japanese girl who’s entire family was sent to the Japanese Internment camps circa World War II. The community tried to keep them safe from that fate once they knew. They failed but that was one of the ways that my Grandma started questioning her father’s not great views.

I actually love hearing about reformed people's stories. I love hearing about people who were in toxic communities or people who used to objectively be dickheads talking about how they got out of that. How they made themselves better.

I hate how most people's initial reaction to stories like that are things like:

"How could you have ever done those things?!" "Oh my god, you believed those things?!" "Well it doesn't un-do the harm you did!"

People incessantly advocate for change but then refuse to allow people who have changed the grace of being acknowledged and given opportunities and chances.

I love hearing about ex-antis talking about how they don't spend their days being angry and sending death threats anymore.

I love hearing about ex-homophobes who realized there's no magic law about what is "natural."

I love reformed bullies talking about how they made amends with their victims and spend their days being considerate of others.

You can't scream about wanting people to change but then expect them to spend the rest of their lives stuck in the past and on who they used to be. You can't expect people to spend the entire rest of their lives grovelling and apologizing and demeaning themselves.

Instead of clinging to who they were, latch onto who they are.

Ask how they got out of it. Commend them on changing. Enjoy that there's one less cause of harm in the world.

[paulpingminho]

[jyslifetimes]

Yin & Young Podcast EP 70 - Writer Peter Kageyama returns with MIDNIGHT CLIMAX

Writer Peter Kageyama joins Yin & Young again to talk about MIDNIGHT CLIMAX the second novel of the Kats Takemoto series. Peter joined us last time (EP 66) discussing HUNTERS POINT the first Kats Takemoto novel and in this book we delve more into Kats wartime past, Chinatown gangs, and secret government mind control experiments. Peter shares insight into the writing process of this novel and what is important to him as a writer.

Highlights:

- 00:11 Intro: photo of Peter’s dad by Dorothea Lange and Feodor Chin is the voice actor for Peter’s novels.

- 03:35 Reintroducing Peter and his first novel Hunters Point which podcasted about a year ago.

- 07:00 Yokohama is one of Dan's favorite places and Peter’s family origins are from the area.

- 07:55 Midnight Climax is Peter's latest book. Promoting a book runs contrary to the writing process.

- 10:00 Peter’s process for writing. Peter has places where he feels comfortable writing.

- 11:45 Thoughts on “writer’s block.” Writing the 3rd book has been more challenging.

- 15:40 In the process of moving in Florida.

- 17:00 “No-No Boy” by John Okada as testament to conscience dissent.

- 19:20 Kats is not anti-government, but he doesn’t like bullies.

- 21:45 Officer Blackstone in the book is a real person and Kats is drawn to other principled characters like him.

- 23:13 How to write about historical figures. Peter connected with a relative of Shig Murao via Instagram.

- 26:54 Fell in love with the characters. Researched PTSD to flesh out the characters better.

- 30:05 Tours of Chinatown helped inspire the writings of the place in the book.

- 32:00 Learning about languages for the book. Utilized Wikipedia for some different terms of the time. Distinctions between Mandarin & Cantonese.

- 36:00 How to write about ethnic characters without playing into stereotypes, particularly the Chinese prostitute character.

- 42:17 The guys talk about why they started studying martial arts

- 46:20 Peter discusses the CIA experiments of the 1960s

- 51:10 Themes of love and friendship.

- 52:57 Dorothea Lange’s picture of Peter’s father who was an inspiration for Kats.

- 57:58 Discussion of sports leagues that came from internment camps. Repercussions of Japanese internment.

- 01:05:25 Staying balanced: Board games and exercise.

Language corner (01:17:20)

Cantonese

鬼�� gwei po - devil old lady. Derogatory term for white women.

鬼佬 gwei lo - foreigner

Scottish

Hurkle-durkle - to lay about in bed long after the time to get up.

Mandarin

舊金山 - jiùjīnshān - literally: old gold mountain which means San Francisco.

Peter Kageyama’s links:

Website: https://peterkageyama.com/

Peter’s non-fiction work on urban planning and communities: https://www.fortheloveofcities.com

Other links:

Peter’s 1st appearance on the Yin & Young Podcast EP66 discussing HUNTERS POINT - https://youtu.be/el10M-hBdVI?si=2bKzcRffOm2CDhdW

Feodor Chin returns to voice MIDNIGHT CLIMAX - https://peterkageyama.com/audiobook-now-available-feodor-chin-returns/

Our podcast with Feodor: https://www.jamesyshih.com/yin-young-podcast/2017/12/3/yin-young-ep24-feodor-chin

San Francisco City Guides - https://sfcityguides.org/

Thai artist featured on Peter’s wall, Ummarid “Tony” Eitharong: https://tonyeitharong.com/

———

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Like/comment to helps others find our work! Yin & Young is produced by James Y. Shih and Daniel Yin. Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/yinyoungpodcast 

[itsbansheebitch]

EXCUSE ME, BITCH????

Wow. Just wow. Didn't think we were headed back to come Woodrow Wilson ass "Germans can't assimilate." What's next, internment camps? Crazy mfers

My family had to Americanize our name so we wouldn't be discriminated against. What the fuck is wrong with you?

I'm German, Swedish, Danish, and Scottish. Each of them has gone through different treatment and has suffered different loses.

We are NOT going back. Never again for ALL OF US. Fuck off with your anti-immigrant trash. If you aren't Native, you aren't FROM here.

Never thought I'd see the day smh.

Being "white" does NOT make you safe. LOCAL COMMUNITY makes you safe.

Vote for Harris. Vote for your relatives who lived through "Irish need not apply."

Vote for self preservation.

We are NOT going back to internment camps.

Edit: I'm not mad at OP, I'm just pissed at people like this

Hey. remember how I said it was just a matter of time before the GOP would come after Italians and Irish people, because they hate everyone and they only wanted Italians and Irish around to vote against Abortions? Remember how one of you responded by posting that stunned party girls meme pic?

YEAH WELL LOOK WHOSE FUCKING RIGHT? Vance pulling that mask right off and showing you what the GOP really thinks of us.

Like you think if you're not black or Jewish or trans that you're safe? No no no, you will never be white enough for them, whoever you are whatever your background, if they want to they will find a reason to other you. If you are kept around its only as a convenient pawn and nothing more, and they will discard you as soon as they feel comfortable doing so.

[mapsontheweb]

Japanese internment camps 1942

[waitineedaname]

"Amestris is an allegory for nazi Germany" you fool. Amestris is not an allegory for just nazi Germany -- it's an allegory for genocidal, fascist, militaristic governments as a whole. Yes, it has parallels to fascist Europe, but it also has parallels to xenophobic militaristic US and imperialist Japan. The point is not "look at this outlier of a country committing atrocities," the point is that the country committing atrocities might be your country and you might be complicit in it no matter how morally upstanding you might think you are. To act like only one government is capable of committing genocide blinds you to the potential that any other government might commit genocide too.

[confessionsofanoperaghost]

And I’m afraid your tags might be lost to time:

i have said this again and again but i will say it one more time: fans of the terror watch the terror season 2 NOOOOOW. george takei is in it.

[vol-au-vending-machine]

Did WW2 happen in the Incredibles universe?

Because Edna Mode is half-German, half-Japanese. And the movie is set in the 60s.

I'm just....wondering.

[sporkberries]

uh more msx metal gear facts big boss was also a 3rd generation japanese immigrant who witnessed pearl harbour and then fought the nazis in wwii. the discrimination his people faced from the american government is one of the things that lead to him turning against the us government

[auressea]

WELL said- thank you!

I only want to add that this is the mildest possible take on the situation. like- this is the 'encyclopedia entry' about a much larger, more complex and deeply horrifying problem.

White 'Liberalism' is so deeply ingrained here, that even well educated and otherwise well intentioned folks think we're The Best and the Brightest.

US-centric racial bullshit is even a problem in Canada. We LOVE pretending that we’re so much better than the United States and that our prejudices aren’t nearly as bad, but the way we’ve treated indigenous peoples has been abysmal for centuries, and most Canadians who aren’t Gen Z weren’t even aware of the worst of it until 2021. I’m not sure how many people outside of Canada know this but in 2021 they found a mass grave of 215 indigenous children outside an old residential school in Kamloops in BC, and everyone was scandalized for approximately two weeks. They’ve since searched like maybe five more schools out of over a hundred and found thousands of more bodies, and the initiative to even look has kind of fizzled out. This was my parents’ first exposure to the idea of residential schools, we’ve been sweeping this shit under the rug for decades, and we still get off to “not being the US”.

All this to say that Canadian history isn’t as flashy as the US but is still worth taking a look at. There’s a lot of harmful institutions still in place left over from like 1873 that symbolize incredibly tense political situations that continue to this day. And even our black history gets boiled down to “Underground Railroad”, oh aren’t we nice, when that’s really not all that happened.

Because I read international news and follow international politics, I am personally aware of the Canadian residential schools scandal, but it absolutely is something that fizzled out after a few weeks and was attempted to be covered up with a few boilerplate apologies and nothing in the way of real change or action. I would therefore gently question your phrasing of "US-centric racial bullshit," since the whole point of your ask is that while Canada pretends to be better than the US, it has its own specific racial and cultural blind spots relating to its own practice of racism. So would this not be more accurately called "Canada-centric racial bullshit?" After all, you're talking about something that happened in Canada, was perpetrated by Canadians, is directly related to the modern Canadian state, and as such as has been denied by white Canadians. After all, the big Trucker March of right-wingers that shut down Toronto took place in Canada, not the US. So yes, there's definitely a need to talk about Canadian racism in and of itself, and not just Canadian racism as a corollary of the US.

Canada is likewise a white settler-colonial state founded by Europeans (English and French, a split still prominent in modern Canada), and that therefore involved equally horrendous legacies of displacement and genocide against the First Nations people. Because Canada is so much smaller population-wise (300 million+ in the US vs just 38 million in Canada), it has thus to some degree been forced to expand its population by relying on immigrants and refugees. And to its credit, it has been more proactive about accepting refugees than the US. But there are still plenty of right-wingers who think that a geographically enormous and empty country like Canada, with only 38 million people, is getting too "crowded" with "foreigners." Likewise, Canada is still officially a part of the Commonwealth, aka the lightly rebranded British Empire, so its formal head of state is the UK monarch. And to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any serious conversations about breaking that link and reorganizing as a republic, the way there have been in Caribbean Commonwealth countries like Jamaica and Barbados (which in fact just did it). That is because white first-world Canadians can see association with the British Empire as a "prestige," instead of the legacy of slavery and exploitation that was the British Empire against majority-black countries in the Caribbean.

Anyway: Canadians are always stereotyped as the nice people who apologize for everything and mind their business, and yes, the flaming dumpster fire of America would make anyone feel superior about not being that. But it doesn't mean there's no problems or that it's a perfect society free of its own flaws and failures, and Americans are also definitely guilty of treating it as some magical escape valve: witness the "I'm going to move to Canada" refrain when something political goes wrong here. In some ways, yes, that would be preferable, viz. free healthcare and strict gun laws. But yeah.