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WHAT YOU CAN DO Sign the resolution opposing the monument as it now reads |
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| Memorial controversy "divisive, not healing" (Midweek Magazine, May 24, 2000) By Bob Jones A just-beneath-the-skin World War II social wound has re-festered and is causing a lot of pain within our big community of Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA). You’d think every AJA would be cheering the $8.6 million memorial park and monument that will be dedicated in November in Washington, D.C. There’s a 15-foot statue of two winged cranes struggling through the barbed wire of an internment camp. The name of every AJA who fought in the war is inscribed there. There is a row of cherry trees, a pool, and an 18-foot temple bell. The Washington Fine Arts Commission approved it and so did the National Park Service. So what’s the big rumble? It’s about an inscription written by a guy nine years dead. He was born Masaru Masaoka but had his name legally changed to Mike. He served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team from 1943-45 but Club 100 president Don Matsuda says "the boys who served with Mike in headquarters hated his big-shot attitude." He definitely was not the "father" of that unit as is claimed in his book "They Call Me Moses." On Feb. 23, 1942, as 120,000 AJAs were being rounded up and sent to the camps, Masaoka -- representing the Japanese American Citizens League -- testified before Congress. Asked if AJAs should prove their loyalty by sumitting to the roundup, Masaoka replied: "Oh, yes, definitely. I think that all of us are called upon to make sacrifices. I think, sincerely, if the military says "move out", we will be glad to move ..." He was asked by Congressman John J. Sparkman (R-Ala.): "It affords you, as a matter of fact, perhaps the best test of your own loyalty?" Masaoka replied: "Definitely." Now, something Masaoka called "The Japanese American Creed" is being engraved on the monument. Leaders in the 100th Battalion veterans club say the creed amounts to "an ingratiating, boot-licking statement.". They point out that JACL members, eager to please the U.S. Government, turned in other AJAs who were trying to escape the internment. 4,500 of them were arrested by the FBI and sent to special camps in Santa Fe, and in Crystal City, Tex. Masaoka’s no hero to a lot of people here and on the Mainland. So a Mainland group that includes retired-in-Hawaii lawyer Frank Sogi has formed the Committee for a Fair and Accurate Japanese American Monument and is petitioning the Department of the Interior for a reconsideration. The committee says "the organization responsible for developing ideas, raising money and constructing the memorial seems more concerned about getting it completed expeditiously than ensuring cross-sectional representation of ideas and experiences, accuracy and appropriateness." Sogi says that when Melvin Chiogioji was elected memorial board chairman in 1988, he told the others: "I don’t give a damn what the inscriptions say, let’s just get it over with!" At that point, they were going to include a general’s statement that "a Jap is a Jap" and a haiku that spoke of "America, stumbling, fumbling." Those were rejected in the final vote. Critics say that from what’s staying on the memorial you’d think that all the AJA soldiers were volunteers from the camps. Not so. Those numbered just 1,208. Ten thousand came from Hawaii and the vanguard 100th Battalion was made up mostly of pre-war draftees, not volunteers. Sen. Dan Inouye, who will have 21 of his words inscribed there, has stayed out of this increasing hot fray. So has Sen. Dan Akaka. Fund-raising in Hawaii has started to dry up since the initial pledge of $50,000 over ten years. And as if the Masaoka-as-quisling matter were not enough, you also find lots of people here who object to being called Japanese Americans. They say they are Americans first, born and raised here, and should be called Americans of Japanese ancestry. The National Japanese American Memorial Foundation should halt the engravings, put off the November ceremony, and go back to the AJA community to resolve these issues. Otherwise, the memorial will be divisive, not healing. Republished with permission of author. Bob Jones is a columnist for Midweek and a veteran television news journalist) |
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