Former U.S. Senate Aide Carolyn Sugiyama Classen: Creation of National Commission which investigated the wrong done to WWII Japanese Americans

This is a recap of most of my remarks at a recent Feb. 18, 2017 Day of Remembrance event at the Tucson Desert Art Museum, where there are currently 3 ongoing art & history exhibits on the WWII internment camps. About 120,000 Japanese Americans civilians (2/3 were U.S. Citizens, ½ were children) were rounded up by the US Government and incarcerated into 10 large relocation centers in desolate parts of America (including two camps in Arizona).  It is fitting to publish these remarks today, February 19, 2017, on the 75th anniversary of the signing by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of Executive Order 9066 which caused this unjust relocation & internment.

Carolyn Sugiyama Classen speaking at Day of Remembrance, courtesy of atty. Robin Blackwood. Panelists Professors Min Yanagihashi & Kathryn Nakagawa in background.

“I am Sansei (3rd generation) from Hawaii, as my grandparents Hyakuji and Tai Sugiyama left Hiroshima and arrived in June, 1892 to the Kingdom of Hawaii before it fell in 1893.  They became impoverished, indentured servants on sugar plantations in Hawaii. My grandparents had 8 children and my father Sueo was the last and youngest.

My father was the 1st in his family to go to college (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and was unfortunately in Los Angeles at USC Dental School when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. He was summarily expelled from USC due to his race, along with other Japanese American students. My father nicknamed Francis (a U.S. Citizen) did not return home to Hawaii, but stayed in Los Angeles, later obtained a “voluntary” pass from Western Defense Command General John DeWitt and fled to Chicago. He left his belongings with a Jewish woman in L.A. and she subsequently shipped them to him. He stayed in Chicago, took classes at Loyola University, then got re-admitted to Dental School at the U. of Maryland, finishing in 1946.  (I found out later that about 500 others also got passes and voluntarily left the West Coast for inland states.)

Fast forward to me as a young attorney practicing law on the island of Kauai, when I decided to go to Washington D.C. to work for U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye. How did I know the Senator? He had always been in our family discussions (“Cousin Dan”), as he was married to first cousin Maggie, the 2nd of 6 daughters of Aunty Omitsu Sugiyama Awamura of Honolulu.  Aunty was my father’s 2nd oldest sister of the 8 children of my immigrant grandparents. My father had been the last born of the 8 children, and was more then 20 years younger than the oldest siblings.

Dan Inouye and cousin Maggie were married before I was even born.  Inouye was a decorated combat veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Battalion, lost his right arm in the war, had been elected as Hawaii’s first Congressman in 1959 (when Hawaii became a state).  He became a U.S. Senator in 1963, and attended by older brother’s high school graduation when I was 16 (when I first met him).

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Day of Remembrance (75th anniversary of E.O. 9066 interning Japanese Americans during WWII) at Tucson Desert Art Museum

Executive Order 9066 Day of Remembrance at Tucson Desert Art Museum, 7000 E. Tanque Verde Rd. Tucson (west of Sabino Canyon Rd.)

February 18, 2017 11:00 am-2:00 pm
“Join us to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of over 100,000 Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. War hysteria and racial prejudice allowed the government to institute a mass detention program based on “military justification.” Speakers include academic experts in history and politics from UA and ASU who have researched or have intimate knowledge of the camps.”

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Academic Panel discussion on Japanese American Internment during WWII featuring:
Carolyn Sugiyama Classen, former Legislative Aide to U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye
Prof. Kathryn Nakagawa, ASU Associate Professor in Asian Pacific American Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Prof.Min Yanagihashi, UA (retired), East Asian Studies Dept.

“Acts of Translation” to be read by poet Heather Nagami at 12:30 p.m. whose work has been on display there since Nov.5, 2016. Heather’s family was interned at several of the camps.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Discussion on “Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit: Triumphing over Adversity. Japanese American WWII Incarceration Reflections, Then and Now” featuring:
Paul Kitagaki, Jr., Photographer with Susie and Terry Matsunaga relating perspectives on incarceration from personal and family experiences.

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“Advancing the Movement” for Asian Pacific American Studies at UA

Yesterday at the Cesar E. Chavez building at University of Arizona 100 students, faculty, administrators, and community leaders sat down together for the first Asian Pacific American Studies Conference, sponsored by UA Asian Pacific American Studies Affairs  (APASA).  The theme of the conference was “Advancing the Movement” and the primary question raised was “Why don’t we have an Asian Pacific American Studies program at the UA”? According to the keynote speaker Professor Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, there are 64 universities in the U.S. with such a program, but none at the University of Arizona (only at ASU in Arizona). Several of the speakers mentioned that Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic immigrant population group in the U.S. (more than Hispanics).

ST_12.06.16_AA_immigration

weblink source: Pew Research Center:  http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/asianamericans-graphics/ 

“Dr. Allyson” as she is called is a California born & educated Filipina American who got her Ph.D. from UCLA in Ethnic Studies. She is now a Professor in the College of Ethnic Studies & Education Leadership at San Francisco State U. She spoke enthusiastically about the past of their struggle to establish an APA studies program at SFS. She then outlined their clear purpose of ARC: access, relevance and community, in order to reach their power and core values. There are 17 current faculty members, 6-8 lecturers, 2500 students, 50 courses, 60-80 Majors/minors and 70 Masters’ degrees granted in their program, which had its start in 1969 with a 5 month student strike. She encouraged the student audience to be “agents of social change”, especially after seeing her students graduate and become teachers and professors.

SFS University Professor Dr. Allyson Tintianhco-Cubales
SFS University Professor Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, courtesy of APASA

Following the keynote speaker, the conference attendees could choose between 2 workshops at 10 a.m:
Session 1A: Asian Pacific Americans and the Media (Dr. Celeste Gonzales de Bustamante, UA College of Journalism

Session 1B: APA Studies Place in Ethnic Studies (Dan Xayaphanh, UA Director of APASA as moderator –with panelists Dr. Ted Tong, UA College of Pharmacy, Dr. Anna O’Leary, UA Mexican American Studies, Dr. Keith James, UA American Indian Studies)

At 11 a.m. the workshop choices were:
Session 2A: The Value of Ethnic Studies: A Student Perspective (Dr. Daisy Rodriguez-Pitel, PCC adminstrator)
Session 2B: APA Studies in AZ (an ASU Perspective) – Dr. Kathryn Nakagawa and Dr. Karen Leong, associate professors from ASU School of Social Transformation

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