DEAR EDITOR: We are concerned people of conscience in the Japanese American community who cannot stand silent as the U.S. government wages war, targets immigrants, especially Arabs and Muslims who are rounded-up and detained, and erodes the freedoms we have fought for.
Sixty years ago, the Japanese American community was typecast as the enemy through the media and by the policies of the U.S. government. Our community experienced evacuations, detentions, FBI harassment, attacks on our families and culture, loss of homes and livelihoods. We felt isolated, humiliated and some felt ashamed.
We see a parallel between the Japanese American concentration camp experience during WWII and the continuing detentions today of Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants without due process. We condemn these attacks. We call on all sections of society to speak out in support of our Arab, Muslims and South Asian brothers and sisters who have been under attack since Sept. 11 to stand with the people of the world and say, NOT IN OUR NAME! WE WILL NOT LET WHAT HAPPENED TO US DURING WWII EVER HAPPEN AGAIN!
Please join us in supporting the Not in Our Name Project, which was developed to strengthen and expand the existing movement of resistance.
We encourage you to display the image of the earth as a way to express opposition to the U.S. government war on the world, racial profiling, roundups and detentions and repressive police state measures. (For more information go to www.notinourname.net).
If you wish to sign onto this statement, please e-mail: JANION@hotmail.com. Please give your name, title, organization.
DEAR EDITOR: I recently wrote this letter to Trent Lott and I’d like to share it with the APA community at large:
I’ve recently learned that you’ve stepped down as majority leader of the Senate because you said this country wouldn’t have the problems it has if Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, had won the presidency in 1948. What I would like to know is what are the nation’s problems that would have been rectified if Thurmond was president, and how would the country be better off?
As an objective APA who was born in San Francisco where the minority is the majority, I would like to hear your side. After all, part of being objective is to listen to both sides.
About segregation, if I’m not mistaken, it is the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means. Curious, the word “discriminatory” is involved in the meaning of segregation, and if I’m right, to discriminate is to give treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit, i.e. association, social status and/or race.
So what I’m deducing here is that you’re saying that the United States of America would be better off if segregation and discrimination weren’t against Federal Law? By all means, please don’t get me wrong; I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m neither conservative nor liberal. I’m just a simple tax-paying American who’s trying to make sense of it all.
From what I was taught in school and church, segregation and discrimination are civil rights violations that contradict the Declaration of Independence.
So my question to you is, how can a country that declares “all men are created equal” be better off by segregating the populace? By you supporting segregation for the United States of America, are you telling me that everything I’ve learned about civil rights is a farce? Can you please explain this to me?
Since all this revolves around race, me being a Korean Filipino American (my mother being Korean and my father being Filipino), if segregation were still practiced today, would that mean that I wouldn’t be able to attend a university because I’m of Asian descent? Would there be a university in the U.S. for only Asians? Mind you, there are other races here in the U.S.: blacks, Europeans, Latin Americans, Asians, Polynesians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (people who were here before 1492, the year of the great immigration problem in this country). Would there be colleges for those people as well?
So please, Republican senator of Mississippi, tell me how segregation will benefit this country, which is built on the sweat, tears, blood and the death of non-white slaves and non-white immigrants. I’m willing to know your side, and I’m sure a lot of objective simple people who were also taught that segregation is a civil rights violation would like to know as well. Oh, since you’re a Republican, you’re most likely a Christian. I’m Christian too. So you probably love Jesus and accept him as your God and Savior. Did you know that Jesus wasn’t white? Would it bother you if you knew that Jesus was actually black? Hair of wool, skin of bronze? Would you discriminate against Jesus?
So what is the point of all this? I’m just looking for answers and I’m also hoping that you can restore my faith in this country: land of the free, home of the brave. I have something called faith that helps me through these troubled times of war-mongering and oil terrorism. Please Senator Lott, you are still a Republican senator of Mississippi; restore my faith in this country by answering my simple questions: how would this country benefit from segregation even though it’s a clear violation of civil rights, and what are the problems that segregation would rectify?
Jerry Kim Gomez
Via e-mail
