Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I took this photo yesterday of Pearl Harbor and tried to imagine what it might have been like. The attack occurred well before Art or I were born but we've heard many stories from people who were there as well as the consequences. It was eerie to picture in my mind's eye airplanes dropping bombs and ships in flames.
The arrow points to the Arizona Memorial where many dignitaries must have been gathering to honor and remember those who gave their lives there.
Art's aunt lived very close to where the attack happened and remembers the day clearly. The grandmother of the store owner where we used to buy our tofu remembers Japanese aircraft strafing the streets and leaving bullet holes on top of cars in Wahiawa. I have two uncles who served in the 442nd. My aunt's husband remembers his father and older brother suddenly being awakened at night and taken to the internment camp with bayonets pointed at them, not because they did anything wrong but because his father was a general manager at a Japanese language newspaper. My mother knows priests who were also taken to internment camps because they were more educated. The horrible attack and the horrible times after that need to be remembered and even more important, need to be learned from.
I took this photo yesterday of Pearl Harbor and tried to imagine what it might have been like. The attack occurred well before Art or I were born but we've heard many stories from people who were there as well as the consequences. It was eerie to picture in my mind's eye airplanes dropping bombs and ships in flames.
The arrow points to the Arizona Memorial where many dignitaries must have been gathering to honor and remember those who gave their lives there.
Art's aunt lived very close to where the attack happened and remembers the day clearly. The grandmother of the store owner where we used to buy our tofu remembers Japanese aircraft strafing the streets and leaving bullet holes on top of cars in Wahiawa. I have two uncles who served in the 442nd. My aunt's husband remembers his father and older brother suddenly being awakened at night and taken to the internment camp with bayonets pointed at them, not because they did anything wrong but because his father was a general manager at a Japanese language newspaper. My mother knows priests who were also taken to internment camps because they were more educated. The horrible attack and the horrible times after that need to be remembered and even more important, need to be learned from.
Amen. We are once again in dangerous times where some fear difference and cannot discern between that and real danger. We will always be stronger together and those who want to divide us must be stopped.
ReplyDeleteSad times from more than one perspective.
ReplyDeleteAs human beings, we will always have our differences. There is no changing people. But we MUST find a way to "agree to disagree" and recognize those differences without demanding everyone be like me. How might it ever happen?
ReplyDeleteLest we forget
ReplyDeleteIt is terrible that they put Japanese Americans in interment camps. I was a child living in California when they came for the owner of our grocery store. He and his parents and even his grandparents had been born in California but that didn't matter. They took him away and he never got any recompense for the loss of the business he had built. It was a large grocery store like a supermarket.
ReplyDeleteJust one of the many miscarriages of justice we see in this country. The Innocence Project has helped release 378 people who have been wrongly convicted in this modern day. Thank God for DNA evidence. No telling how many more have been executed wrongly or died in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Fear can make people do some crazy things. The internment camps is one of those.
ReplyDeleteI had an aunt who was living there when pearl harbor was bombed. She is now 96 and has a story to tell. will post it sometime...
ReplyDeleteYes, they do.
ReplyDeleteShameful and embarrassing behavior... and it appears we Americans still have a lot to learn about tolerance.
ReplyDeleteIf only we learned from the lessons of history...
ReplyDeleteWe can only pray that internment camps do not come back into vogue for Muslims. Hopefully we learned from that dreadful mistake.
ReplyDeleteIt was one of those red letter days when much of the world changed. Canada has it's very sad history of interning Japanese residents, many of them being Canadian citizens and most of them born in Canada. Possessions, property and money stolen from them were never given back.
ReplyDeleteI echo what many have already said here. It's so sad (and scary) to see where this country appears to be headed...
ReplyDeleteA horrible, horrible thing. It sickens me that this happened. There was a woman on the radio the other day talking about her remembrance. Here it is if you want to read/listen. http://www.npr.org/2016/12/07/504602293/at-92-a-japanese-american-reflects-on-the-hardships-of-internment-camps
ReplyDeleteI am SO glad that I wasn't born yet. The Japanese Americans had to prove themselves to be American and practically give up their Japanese-ness. Because my mother was the most educated in the family, she gave all of the relatives English names. Some of her family were shipped back to Japan, and her boyfriend at the time was arrested and would have been deported if not for the efforts of Mrs. Dillingham and her appeal to Admiral Nimitz.
ReplyDeleteBy some accounts, the powers in the US wanted war and turned a blind eye to the Japanese attack. Almost reminds me of 9/11 and our subsequent war against Iraq.
It will be interesting this week, the Prime Minister of Japan will visit Pearl Harbor. War is so cruel, to all involved.
I thought of you yesterday. For our US citizens of Japanese descent this anniversary is so much more complex.
ReplyDeleteI do hope we learned from the awful internment mistakes of yesteryear. But I fear for our future, Kay. :-(
ReplyDeleteSo sorry family members -- and all others -- were subjected to such treatment after Pearl Harbor. I never thought I'd live to see the day when the possibility such an error could be repeated. Disappointing that those who would be leaders don't seem to have learned history's lessons.
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrifying time. I think of our Mayor of Hawaii Island, a man of my age, who relates that he saw Japanese neighbors being taken away. He is Korean. His father admonished him not to hate the Japanese. People on the Big Island pulled together and got through the war. The Japanese-Americans showed their mettle, sometimes at the cost of their very lives in the war. Japanese Americans are important in every aspect of life in Hawaii. The most important leaders have been Sen. Dan Inouye, who lost his arm in WW II combat-- he did a very good job of representing Hawaiian interests in Washington-- and Patsy Mink, most remembered for her sponsorship of Title IX, an important law that opened up aspects of higher education and college sports to women.
ReplyDeleteA tough, hard working, admirable bunch and as all-American as they come!
The lesson, I guess, is that we are not going to let ourselves be divided by Trump and his crowd. Hawaii can show the rest of the country the way and stop all the divisiveness around race and ethnicity.