Amy Goodman: Lessons of Internment

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Lessons of Internment
Posted on Feb 20, 2008
By Amy Goodman

Nearing 87 years old, Yuri Kochiyama lives in a small room in an Oakland, Calif., senior living facility. Her walls are adorned with photos, posters, postcards and mementos detailing a living history of the revolutionary struggles of the 20th century. She is quiet, humble and small, and has trouble at times retrieving the right word. Yet, with a sparkle in her eyes, she has no trouble recalling that incredible history--not from books, not from documentaries, but from living it, on the front lines.

February marks a coincidence of anniversaries in Kochiyama’s incredible life: 66 years ago, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the mass internment of Japanese-Americans. Then there is Feb. 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

Kochiyama was a young woman living with her parents in San Pedro, Calif., when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Within hours, her father was arrested by the FBI. She recalled:

“ said, ‘Is there a Seichi Nakahara living here?’ I said, ‘He just came home from ulcer surgery.’ And they went in and got him—it was done so quickly, it didn’t even take a half of a minute, I don’t think. And I didn’t dare ask a question. They were going out the door immediately. And then, I just called my mother, who was right down the street to say, ‘Come home quick. The FBI just came and took Pop.’ ”

He was taken to the San Pedro Hospital, where U.S. sailors and Marines who had been injured in the Japanese attacks were also being treated. Kochiyama’s father was the only person of Japanese descent in the hospital. They put him in a bed behind a sheet marked “Prisoner of War.” Kochiyama recalled what her mother said: “When she saw the reaction of all the American who were just brought in from Wake Island, she didn’t think he was going to last. And so, she asked the head of that hospital, could he be given a room by himself, and then when he was feeling better, could they take him ... to the prison, because that hospital, she said, was probably worse than prison, because here were all these Americans who had been injured.” .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080221_lessons_of_internment/

[midnight]

1. Destruction is plentiful when lead by fear. This administration

knows that lesson well and they practice it daily.