March 31, 2000
Mr. Terry Carlstrom
Regional Director, National Capital Region
National Park Service
1100 Ohio Drive SW
Washington DC 20242
Dear Mr. Carlstrom:
I have just read the final list of the proposed panel inscriptions to be placed on the Japanese American World War II memorial.
As I wrote to you (with copy to Mr. John G. Parsons) on November 13, 1999, and to Mr. J. Carter Brown and Mr. Melvin Chiogioji, I expressed strong reservations regarding the sentiments that were to be expressed on the commemoration. I was distressed particularly by the excerpts from Mike Masaoka's "Japanese American Creed," the one proposal of which I was aware at the time. I agree that Masaoka has had a role in Japanese American affairs during and since World War II. However, he represents only one segment of Japanese Americans and, as I stated in my previous letter, he nor the Japanese American Citizens League represent all Japanese Americans.
The main controversy to accurately commemorate the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II has focused on the portrayal of a group of people incarcerated without due process of law. Any legitimate portrayal must include examples of individuals and groups who protested the effects of Executive Order 9066. Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, Minoru Yasui and Mitsuye Endo, all U.S. citizens, took their constitutional challenges to the Supreme Court. Why is there nothing that would serve as a remembrance of those individuals? Or of the others who resisted the draft, or the many who were involved in labor strife and the thousands whose stories are untold, but whose actions had an impact on the lives of those in the camps? Why are they silenced?
To homogenize Japanese Americans during World War II as dutiful victim/citizens is historically inaccurate. It is an insult to their memory. As it now stands the Memorial is a testimony to the rigidities of text-book histories. It is our responsibility to future generations that the past is conveyed in ways that we can acknowledge the dynamic makeup of humans and the many avenues they choose by which to live their lives. It is time that we progress beyond identifying people, in this case a minority, as indistinguishable, and represent them with the diversity that distinguishes all humans.
Sincerely yours,
Mitziko Sawada
Associate Professor of History
cc. Mr. John G. Parsons
Mr. J. Carter Brown
Mr. Melvin Chiogioji
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