DAY OF REMEMBRANCE. The Portland Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League’s recent Day of Remembrance event featured a talk by civil-rights lawyer Elden Rosenthal (left) and a performance about a young Japanese American named Ted (right) by storyteller Alton Chung. (AR Photos/Julie Stegeman)

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #11 (March 11, 2008), page 10.

By Julie Stegeman

I learned about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II in American History class at my high school in Ohio, but the textbook did not convey the bafflement and fear these citizens and residents must have felt when their lives were turned upside down beginning with the signing of Executive Order 9066 in February of 1942 — the order which led to the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

The past became much more vivid to me after attending the Portland Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League’s Day of Remembrance event, "Fighting for Civil Rights in an Era of Terror." The event was held February 24 at Portland State University (PSU) and was co-sponsored by the PSU Center for Japanese Studies.

The first portion of the event focused on remembering the past. It began with a short film of oral history, interviews with people who were children or young adults when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

The film documents how people’s lives were changed after the signing of Executive Order 9066 and how the bottom dropped out of their "safe" world when they realized their American citizenship would not protect them. They spoke about having their houses searched by the FBI, how some of their fathers were imprisoned without trial, and of receiving the Notice of Evacuation, allowing them to take only what they could carry as they were herded onto trains that took them to assembly centers.

One of these assembly centers was located at what is now the Portland Expo Center, which was basically a huge barn at that time. Each family lived in a stall with a canvas "door" and used communal showers and toilets. Many of those interviewed for the film told of deplorable conditions: the lack of privacy, the heat, the flies, and the treatment they received, much like as if they were animals. The detainees were then shipped off to one of the internment camps.

After a welcome and introduction, the first guest presenter, Alton Chung, took the stage. Mr. Chung, a professional storyteller, presented two stories from his one-man show, Okage Sama De (I am what I am, because of you).

Mr. Chung gave a first-person account of a young Japanese American who spoke to the audience about his friend Ted, who was born in California and also of Japanese descent. He volunteered to fight in the army in February 1942, and shortly thereafter the rest of his family was sent to an internment camp. Ted served in the U.S. Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was composed primarily of Japanese Americans and is the most decorated unit in U.S. history. The story illustrated the irony of a young man who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, fighting and dying, while his family was imprisoned as a potential threat to that same country.

Mr. Chung next told the story of a young Jewish boy from Lithuania who was sent to the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. Some similarities were raised between this boy’s imprisonment and that of the Japanese Americans in the United States. After being left for dead by the Germans, he was rescued by four Japanese Americans from the 442nd Infantry.

The second half of the event focused on taking lessons learned from our past and applying them to conditions our country faces today. The guest presenter for this segment was Elden Rosenthal, a civil-rights lawyer.

Mr. Rosenthal spoke of times in our country’s history when people were afraid for their safety, which led to restrictions in individual freedoms, such as the Japanese internment camps during World War II. He drew parallels to the situation we face today where, in the aftermath of September 11, forces within our government have sought widespread restrictions of individual freedoms in the name of security. He spoke about CIA renditions, secret prisons, and the erosion of civil-liberties associated with the Patriot Act and other attempts by the government to expand its ability to perform wiretaps and searches and read e-mail and other records.

Rosenthal also called into question the labelling of people detained for reasons of national security as "enemy combatants," which prevents them from seeing a lawyer or petitioning for habeas corpus. Mr. Rosenthal paraphrased a statement by Benjamin Franklin: Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

The event provided an opportunity to remember and reflect on a dark time in our nation’s past and called for continued vigilance for civil liberties.

For more information about the Portland Chapter of the Japanese America Citizens League, contact Jeff Selby <jeff@aiwcreative.com> or visit <www.pdxjacl.org>. To learn more about Okage Sama De, read "Local storyteller captures diverse experiences of Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII," by Toni Tabora-Roberts, at <www.asianreporter.com>.