EO9066 and 9/11: do you remember?
by annie noguchiHow NSU and the MSA’s Day of Remembrance help me not to forget.
As I walk down Sproul, someone shoves a flyer under my nose, exclaiming, “Wanna fight for justice? Wanna build community?”
And my response is a polite albeit brisk, “No, thank you.”
…No, thank you?
A speaker on the steps of Sproul Hall advocates for solidarity for some cause or another—“Let’s stand in solidarity!”—and I walk by, in a hurry to get to my hardboiled editor meeting.
Community. Solidarity.
Call me cynical, call me jaded, call me pessimistic, but recently I’ve heard those words so many, many, many times that they’ve almost lost meaning to me.
Yes, I do believe in community building and solidarity with other people of color. I believe in social justice, and activism, and progression. I believe in fighting against racism, too, and dispelling stereotypes, and working to break down the white power structure and the institutionalized racism that governs our nation. I believe in all that, and more.
To be honest, though, sometimes I forget what “community” and “solidarity” actually mean. Sometimes I get caught in deadlines and agendas and rough drafts and budgets and I forget to slow down for a moment, and remember why I believe in the values, ideals, causes, and issues that I do. Sometimes I forget that these causes and issues are real people, my friends and my neighbors and my brothers and sisters, actually, and their struggles and their wisdom.
I realized this with beautiful clarity last Thursday, as I sat in Heller Lounge at the Nikkei Student Union (NSU) and the Muslim Students Association’s (MSA) Day of Remembrance program. Suddenly, “community” and “solidarity” made a lot more sense to me as I began to see that NSU and the MSA were actually building a community together and standing in solidarity with one another.
One week ago, the NSU and the MSA, for the first time ever, collaborated to put on this Day of Remembrance. This annual event for Japanese Americans is not only to remember and pay homage to the pain of the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, but also for the community to renew its vow to remain vigilant in the defense of the civil rights and civil liberties of all communities and individuals.
Now, I know you are all educated readers and do not need me to explain to you why JA interment was such a big ideal. That those incarcerated were citizens, with homes and businesses and communities and their own thriving ethnic economy.
In the end, those interned spent an average of 900 days in camps in the most awful, desolate parts of the country. There was no due process, no compensation, and no explanation and the psychological and emotional damage done to the entire JA community still resounds strongly today. Families were fragmented, people committed suicide, some died of heartbreak. There are hundreds of thousands of stories and each one of them makes me cry in anger and in sadness. Each one reminds me how fragile civil liberties and even citizenship are in this country if you are a person of color.
And so, as soon as 9/11 happened and America looked to find scapegoats, Japanese Americans across the country got into their cars and picked up their phones and offered the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities their support.
Many Japanese Americans know all too well what it is like to be racially profiled, scapegoated, and victims of backlash because we suddenly looked like the enemy. We know all too well what it’s like to be the target of laws and policies that require us to register, surrender our cameras and other “subversive” possessions, and stay indoors after the 6 p.m. curfew. We know what it’s like for the FBI to come knocking at our door, taking our leaders away under the pretense of “questioning.” And we know what it’s like to never hear from those leaders again—our ministers, our teachers, our business leaders. Our fathers, our grandfathers, our uncles.
The Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities know what it is like as well. Immediately after 9/11, community leaders were rounded up and taken for question by the FBI, not to be heard from for months. Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans have endured a wave of hate crimes, vilification by the media, and discriminatory treatment under new “homeland security” policies. They’ve been taken from their homes in the middle of the night as well, to be held and questioned without due process for months at a time.
They know what it’s like. We know what it’s like.
And thus, a friendship was born between the UC Berkeley Muslim community and the Japanese American community.
This year, NSU and the MSA organized this year’s DOR together, held in Heller Lounge on Thursday, February 19. The evening started dramatically, with twenty six students of Muslim and Japanese American students marching into Heller Lounge.
“Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry.”
“Instructions to all persons of Hmong ancestry.”
“Instructions to all persons of Muslim ancestry.”
Each person tacked a poster to the walls of Heller Lounge, shouting out “Instructions…” one by one. There were twenty-six, ranging from Christian faith to Pacific Islander ancestry to queer identity. The posters were photoshopped versions of Executive Order 9066, the key government document that ordered the incarceration of Japanese Americans. While DOR this year focused on the experiences of Muslims and Japanese Americans, the opening performance highlighted the reality that any groups’ civil liberties can be challenged.
The DOR program continued with a screening of the documentary 9066 to 9/11, followed by a panel of speakers including WWII activist and writer Hiroshi Kashiwagi, UC Berkeley’s Dr. Hatem Bazian, Japanese American community leader Andy Noguchi, Muslim American activist Dina El-Nakhal, and student leader Sakeena Ahsan.
The evening came to a close with a candlelight ceremony on Upper Sproul. MC Lyell Sakaue and student speaker Sakeen Ahsan spoke: “We are here to reaffirm why we cannot forget the past…We are here tonight to move towards a more unified community.”
After the candlelight ceremony, everyone trooped back into Heller Lounge for sushi and samosas. While the event was orchestrated nicely, what struck me the most was how the MSA and the NSU were able to work together and get to know each other. It seemed like an odd mix, and perhaps it was, but both groups were able to come together through the offering of genuine partnership and their commitment to social justice.
This resounded especially with me, because I’ve realized that when a community is attacked simply because of their racial or ethnic background, all communities of color are being attacked. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. Japanese Americans were incarcerated because of their race, and Muslim, Arab, and South Asians are experiencing much of the same hate because of their race.
The fact that Japanese Americans and Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans’ civil liberties are being grossly violated simply because of their race goes beyond the policies that target said groups. It’s a statement by the government and by society that we, people of color, Asian Pacific Americans, are different. We’re not really Americans. Rather, we are conspiring terrorists from another country. Even if we are naturalized or birthright citizens, we are not really American. Our allegiance still lies with Japan, or maybe al-Qaida.
What if it had been a plane from Korea, or from South Africa, or from Chile that hit the World Trade Center? What if tomorrow, someone who looks like you blows up a government building? What if someone from a country you have ties to goes on a shooting rampage? Then you become the target. You’ll be racially profiled, discriminated against, and a victim of backlash. If you’re unlucky, laws will be passed that require you to register with the government, turn in your cameras and radios, and burn all memorabilia that in any way conjures up ideas of foreignness. And then, in the middle of the night the FBI may come for you, and you or your mother or your father will be taken for questioning, not to be heard from for months.
Yes, it’s a little dramatic, and yes, it’s a worst case scenario, but unfortunately it’s the truth, and the implications are broad—the government is telling us that we don’t belong here, that people who are not white are not wanted in the United States, that our citizenship is not valid. We are only citizens with rights, maybe, in times of peace. And even then, we are never truly accepted as full Americans.
The Day of Remembrance is for remembering this truth. It’s for paying homage and for vowing to work against racism and hate. It’s for everyone to learn about the hundreds of thousands of stories of internment pain and struggle. It’s for celebrating the victories we do have—the activists that stood up against incarceration, the Redress Movement of the 1980s, the current work Muslim and Japanese American communities are doing together.
And perhaps most importantly, Day of Remember is for remembering that the only way to continue to protest and struggle is to form relationships and solidarity with other communities of color. The internment of Japanese Americans wasn’t an isolated event. It’s happening today, and it will happen again in the future. Maybe now I won’t say “No, thank you,” to offers of justice and community building. Maybe now, I am reminded exactly what community and solidarity mean.