2009: The Year of Michi Weglyn
March 17, 2008
Consider this story: A minority woman, due to circumstances beyond her control, does not finish college. Instead, she embarks on a career in fashion design and serves as costume designer for one of the biggest television shows of her generation.
Years later, she decides to spend several years in the National Archives, researching an issue of importance to herself and her community. She works tirelessly from opening to closing every day, bringing a carefully wrapped half sandwich for lunch and paying for photocopies from her own coin purse.
She ends up writing a critically acclaimed book that exposes deception at the highest levels of the government. Its publication ignites a powerful national movement that results in congressional hearings, a presidential apology and redress payments to her community. It is considered by many civil rights historians to be one of the most successful redress movements in American history.
Although not equipped with a graduate degree, academic affiliation or support in the scholarly community, her work galvanizes the growth of Asian Pacific American studies. It also inspires a generation of lawyers who go on to found the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and many APA law student and legal services groups.
While this story sounds like a fantasy cooked up in Hollywood, it is the actual life trajectory of Michi Nishiura Weglyn. Her book, Years of Infamy, did indeed inspire a movement.
Many Japanese Americans and civil libertarians felt that Japanese Americans had been wronged by their incarceration behind barbed wire during World War II. To prove this case, however, someone had to show that there was no real “military necessity” for the government’s actions. This is what Michi and her book did.
Years of Infamy contained not only clear, elegant prose, but numerous photocopies of revealing civilian and military documents. She dared to place blame squarely at the feet of President Franklin Roosevelt, that icon of liberalism. And she pulled no punches when she reminded us that “concentration camps and wholesale contempt for individual rights and lawful procedure are not the exclusive province of corrupt tyrannies and maniacal dictatorships.”
Michi died on April 25, 1999, at age 72, but her life continues to serve as an inspiration. Not only did she overcome adversity, she refused to be intimidated by professional barriers or conventional thinking. She lived a remarkably well-rounded life as a poet, painter and friend to many people around the country and the world. Her gracious support for other scholars and writers led to the release of many books, articles, plays and official documents that shed even more light on the wartime incarceration.
When Years of Infamy was first published in 1976, it served as a tool for ripping away the curtain of undeserved executive secrecy and power in the Roosevelt years. Today, it continues to serve as a reminder that claims of “military necessity” or “national security” need to be examined by disinterested parties, so that they do not serve simply to cover up injustice, wrongdoing and unconstitutional activities.
Years of Infamy also serves as a testament to the power of perseverance, and serves as one of the best examples of how community-based scholarship can influence discussion, just as strongly as campus-based scholarship.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of her passing, I propose that we declare 2009 the “Year of Michi Weglyn” in our campus, professional and membership-based groups. Here are a few examples of how you can celebrate an extraordinary Asian Pacific American, while reaffirming your support for human rights and the need for continued collective vigilance and action to preserve our constitutional form of government:
• Buy copies of Years of Infamy for your town and school libraries.
• Sponsor a house party where you and your friends read Years of Infamy, and get together to discuss its current relevance.
• Integrate discussion about Michi and Years of Infamy into your K-12 and college curricula.
• Organize an event on your campus or in your academic, church or community group that invites scholars and activists to discuss Years of Infamy and Michi’s contributions.
• Support the Michi and Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair in Multicultural Studies at Cal Poly Pomona.
• Contact the Japanese American National Museum (janm.org) and your local Asian American studies department for more details about Michi’s life and legacy.
Phil Tajitsu Nash serves as Michi Weglyn’s literary executor. Please contact him at pnash(at)umd.edu to share your ideas for celebrating Michi and to learn about videos, speakers and other resources.
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