Auction of Internment Items Halted After George Takei Intervenes

[KamaAina]

Original story here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026511969

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/auction-internment-items-halted-after-george-takei-intervenes-n342776

After heated outcry by the Japanese American community protesting the scheduled public auction of 450 arts and crafts items made by incarcerated Japanese Americans during their time in World War II internment camps, and the timely intervention of Asian American actor and activist George Takei, Rago Arts and Auction Center has withdrawn the relevant lots from auction.

The items, including paintings, personal photographs, and handmade crafts, were from the collection of Allen Hendershott Eaton, the "dean of American crafts."

"[Japanese American] politicians, attorneys, community organizations, historians, academics, have rallied their support as grass roots community responses have been coming in," Satsuki Ina, PhD, filmmaker "Children of the Camps" and member of the ad hoc committee Japanese American History NOT for Sale, told NBC News. A Change.org petition protesting the sale garnered over 6,700 signatures.

However it was the intervention of George Takei, coupled with a Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation lawsuit, that finally turned the tide. Takei has reportedly agreed to act as intermediary between Rago Arts and Auction Center and Japanese American community institutions.

Oh, my!

[SamKnause]

1. Awesome George

[Stuart G]

2. k and r..nt

[underpants]

3. Awesome

[yuiyoshida]

4. Yokatta ne!!! Sugoii yo!!

[madokie]

12. George is a good man

always fighting the good fight.

[justhanginon]

21. It's amazing to me. Every time

I see or hear Mr Takei in the media he is always, always doing and supporting things that are beneficial to others. He is building quite a legacy of good works.

[Lucky Luciano]

5. Takei is one of the best. nt

[democrank]

6. Well done, George Takei!

[mountain grammy]

7. Good news.

[bullwinkle428]

8. Takei is an utterly inspirational human being!

K&R.

[dballance]

9. Those items absolutely need to be in a museum.

A place where they can be viewed and help us remember one of the horrible things we did during WWII.

[Overseas]

10. K&R. Yes please!

[tblue37]

11. George Takei is a national treasure--in so many ways! nt

[d_legendary1]

13. Oh my indeed!

[MADem]

14. Takei spent his childhood in an internment camp. I can see why he takes this personally.

Listen to his recollections (or read them) here: http://io9.com/george-takei-describes-his-experience-in-a-japanese-int-1533358984

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were born in?

GEORGE TAKEI: Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, at the age of eight, you were interned?

GEORGE TAKEI: No, at the age of five.

AMY GOODMAN: At the age of five.

GEORGE TAKEI: We came out when I was eight.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about that. What happened?

GEORGE TAKEI: Yes, well, you know, it wasn't just my birth in the U.S. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They were Northern Californians. And they met in Los Angeles, so I was born in Southern California. But there's no north-south divide in our family. We're Americans. We were and are—my parents have passed now, but we were citizens of this country. We had nothing to do with the war. We simply happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. But without charges, without trial, without due process—the fundamental pillar of our justice system—we were summarily rounded up, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, where we were primarily resident, and sent off to 10 barb wire internment camps—prison camps, really, with sentry towers, machine guns pointed at us—in some of the most desolate places in this country: the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, the blistering hot desert of Arizona, of all places, in black tarpaper barracks. And our family was sent two-thirds of the way across the country, the farthest east, in the swamps of Arkansas.

And it's from this experience that, when I was a teenager, my father told me that our democracy is very fragile, but it is a true people's democracy, both as strong and as great as the people can be, but it is also as fallible as people are. And that's why good people have to be actively engaged in the process, sometimes holding democracy's feet to the fire, in order to make it a better, truer democracy.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: If I'm not mistaken, the governor of California back then during the internment process was Earl Warren, who later became a justice of the Supreme Court, perhaps one of the most liberal justices, but he supported those efforts back then.

GEORGE TAKEI: Well, this illustrates the hysteria that ran throughout the country. Actually, Earl Warren was the attorney general of the state of California at that time.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, attorney general, right.

GEORGE TAKEI: He took an oath on the Constitution. He knew the Constitution. But knowing the Constitution and knowing what he was going to do was going to be against the Constitution, his ambition took over. He wanted to be governor. And he ran on the "get rid of the Japs" platform—and won. And as you stated, he later went on to become the "liberal" chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. So, even with the Supreme Court, there is that human fallibility. We—the good people have to be engaged in the process. And that's what's so shameful about the Arizona Legislature, that people like that, people who don't think, people who don't listen and people who do damage to the state get elected and dominate in legislatures.....

[XemaSab]

15. Just crushing

I've been to Manzanar and the site of Tule Lake.

What we did to those people was horrifying.

[Jesus Malverde]

16. Disgusting weasel word "internment camp". They were concentration camps.

Good on George otherwise. This shameful tragedy from which the west coast Japanese american community has never recovered, along with the misguided urban renewal of japan town and the western addition in SF destroyed a once vibrant community.

[KamaAina]

22. Um, how many of their residents were gassed?

[Jesus Malverde]

23. Concentration camp

If you study history you would be aware it's not a nazi phenomena or requires gassing.

http://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

[mopinko]

26. i think the nazis gave it a new definition.

history notwithstanding.

[KamaAina]

28. Mahalo (thank you).

[MisterP]

24. "A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched" --The LA Times

but even that attitude wasn't enough: they had to withhold all the totally-exculpatory reports
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fahy
plus, y'know, it's unconstitutional and entirely wrong by all moral codes except "raison d'etat," which has neither morals nor criteria

[Jesus Malverde]

25. Interesting link thanks

The John Yoo of his day.

[Nevernose]

17. The Smithsonian had a display of this art a few years back

It was incredible what people made out of trash and junk. The human urge to create art is mankind at its most primal: female cavemen were painting on cave walls in France before we invented house, or clothing, or agriculture.

(I've got a couple of close relatives, through marriage, of these internment camps. Their stories are alternately terrifying and wonderful)

[niyad]

18. k and r + gazillion

[ismnotwasm]

19. K&R

Love that man

[Change has come]

20. K&R

Good on the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation too. They've offered to purchase the items for above the expected market value (from the second link).

[central scrutinizer]

27. good read on the subject

Stubborn Twig, by Lauren Kessler

http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/stubborn-twig

Not only were the Japanese interned in camps, but all of their lands and holdings were stolen.

[KamaAina]

29. So who plays Takei in the inevitable biopic?

I mean, come on. Internment camp, to Star Trek stardom, to relative obscurity outside Trekker World, to a brief blip when coming out... to renewed stardom on an Internet that would have been unimaginable in his Trek days! Oh, my!

[hifiguy]

30. No doubt about it, George Takei

is one of the best human beings out there. He's 20% cooler than anyone else. George!