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Don’t Repeat the Hate

By Yuriko Nagano

I t’s been chilling to hear about hate crimes against Arab Americans or anyone that looks Middle Eastern because the terrorists and their assumed ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks were Middle Eastern. Not only are Arab Americans victims of racial profiling, harassment and threats, but they are also scared for their lives because bullets are being shot at them. The slaying on September 15 of an Indian gas station owner of Sikh faith in Phoenix, Ariz. — whom authorities believe was killed because of his long facial hair and turban — has been a wake-up call as to how brutal these racial incidents can get. Despite repeated calls for tolerance by politicians including President George W. Bush, people of Middle Eastern descent and those who look so may be forced to keep a low profile to stay safe throughout this crisis.

Can’t some white Americans understand that the United States is filled with non-white Americans and the only difference is their skin color? Whenever the United States has an unpleasant incident with a non-white country, it seems that they want to release their patriotic energy by harassing their non-white American neighbors. The most recent example in memory would be the China spy plane incident in April. I remember reports of an Illinois talk show host calling for the internment of Chinese Americans or boycotting Chinese restaurants until U.S. soldiers were returned.

With the China spy plane incident, the U.S. soldiers were safely returned and no one was hurt. In this case, however, the death toll of innocent civilians amounts to some 6,700 and the incident is the most vicious terrorist act in U.S. history. I fear it will not just be talk, but action this time.

One of the worst things that can happen to you as an American is to be stripped of your civil liberties, which happened after the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. As a result of public hysteria, 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forced to abandon their properties and possessions, and were rounded up and locked away. The U.S. government even went so far as to bring in innocent Japanese Peruvians from South America, violating their civil rights by placing them into internment camps and bartering them for American prisoners of war. The internment camps did nothing to make American society safer. The interned people of Japanese descent proved to be no threat. The camps simply did irreparable harm to these innocent people.

The anti-Middle Eastern sentiment may grow even stronger as the war against terrorists like Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan escalates. In the coming months, there may be some debate about sending people of Middle Eastern descent to internment camps for the reason that they may be safer if they are isolated from the public. This was one of the reasons used to send Japanese Americans to internment camps. This time, some may say an internment is necessary to root out any “sleeper” terrorist agents. Others may argue the risk of another Sept. 11 attack is too great and sacrificing the civil liberties of Middle Eastern Americans is a small price to pay.

I know some Japanese Americans and their descendants who are still feeling psychological damage from the internment experience more than 50 years ago. For example, some are still frightened on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor because they feel they may be harassed. Luckily, I haven’t had to go through such pain since my family was not in the camps, but even I get nervous when the topic of Pearl Harbor comes up, probably because of guilt by association. I hope Americans of Middle Eastern descent will not have to experience such trauma.

On the other hand, I don’t blame some white Americans for stereotyping non-white Americans. In many Hollywood movies and TV programs, ethnic groups like Asian Americans are portrayed as the mysterious fighters. Take for example some recent blockbusters, Rush Hour, Payback, The Fast and the Furious or Romeo Must Die. The Asian gangs may not necessarily be the ultimate enemy in these films, but they are definitely portrayed as shadowy figures, all dressed in black. Stereotyping somehow sells in popular culture.

In a similar sense, the main and practically only news story coming out of the Middle East before Sept. 11 was the Arab-Israeli conflict over Palestine. We were showered with news images of violent suicide bombings and killings from the conflict. Many may generalize that all of the Middle East is a bloody battle zone with armed terrorists lurking in every corner. Although news actually only highlights the worst and the most dramatic, the general public wouldn’t know the difference. Maybe they cannot understand that most people from the Middle East are not terrorists but ordinary, peace-loving citizens like ourselves.

As an American citizen, I hope our country is not only strong enough to withstand the devastating effects from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but also have the strength to not lash out with our stereotypes against people who may have the same skin color as the terrorists.

Yuriko Nagano is a Japanese American living in Oakland.