For Immediate Release: June 22, 2000
RESOLUTION PROTESTING JAPANESE AMERICAN MEMORIAL INSCRIPTIONS DELIVERED TO INTERIOR SECRETARY
List of Hundreds of Signers Included
WASHINGTON, D.C - A nationwide resolution with 707 signatures was delivered to U.S. Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt on Thursday calling for a review of the planned Japanese American national memorial, JAvoice.com: Committee for a Fair and Accurate Japanese American Memorial announced today.
In addition to the individuals, several organizations have registered objections to the National Park Service (NPS) for its "failure to fulfill its mandate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the (Japanese American national) memorial." The memorial is under construction on federal land in Washington, D.C., and administered by the NPS. It is due to be completed and dedicated in November 2000.
The resolution cites the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation (NJAMF), which oversaw the design of the memorial, for its "lack of respect for and sensitivity to the rich diversity of the Japanese American community." It asks Secretary Babbitt to investigate and "oversee the integrity of the Japanese American national memorial." Signers also ask that the "NPS carry out its responsibilities by reconsidering, reviewing, and analyzing its approval of the memorial inscriptions, making necessary revisions, and deleting the misquoted controversial 'creed.'"
Four representatives of the JAvoice.com committee also met today with John Parsons, Associate Regional Director, Lands, Resources and Planning, National Capital Region, and two other National Park Service officials, and personally presented them with the resolution and signatures. They also discussed the concerns raised in the resolution.
Mr. Parsons told the representatives the meeting was arranged at the direction of Secretary Babbitt and National Park Service Director Robert Stanton. Mr. Parsons also said he would brief Secretary Babbitt and Director Stanton on the meeting and then issue a response.
One major point of contention is the NPS’s decision allowing the name and altered "quotation" of perhaps the most controversial person in the Japanese American community to be etched in stone on the memorial. In his position as field secretary for the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) during the critical World War II years, Mike Masaoka and the organization he represented espoused positions that angered a community in crisis. He and JACL strongly advocated "constructive cooperation" with the U.S. Government, even if it meant massive violations of human, civil, and constitutional rights. Further, they recommended, encouraged, and sometimes pressured Japanese Americans to comply with discriminatory policies that included en masse restrictions, exclusion from West Coast states, and incarceration in concentration camps. These decisions were based solely on "race."
The resolution charges that "The NPS and NJAMF acted insensitively and disrespectfully by including the misquotation of a 'creed,' which was written by a private (not elected) individual they know reflects an organizational perspective of only a limited segment of the Japanese American community, and which they know causes widespread pain and objections."
In addition to this controversial misquotation, there are significant areas of concern about the inscriptions, including inaccuracies, misrepresentations, gender biases, and exclusions of diverse perspectives. Signers of the resolution call for corrections to be made because the public is "expecting this permanent memorial to educate the public about the Japanese American experience and to reflect, inclusively and accurately, the community's values of equality, justice, tolerance, respect, and human dignity."
The extensive problems with the inscriptions can be attributed to improper processes, in which "The NJAMF, supported by the NPS, imposed their will on the public without proper notice to the community and ample opportunities for public response, using similar processes to the ones enacted by certain Japanese American 'leaders' during World War II, but this time without the excuse that this similar and intolerant position was being forced upon them by "emergency" circumstances."
At the meeting today, the NPS officials presented the JAvoice.com committee with a version of the inscriptions that it had approved. This version was different from one which NJAMF has described as the final version.
Aside from individuals, organizations signing the resolution include: Honolulu Chapter, Japanese American Citizens League; Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California; Manzanar Committee; San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department; Stanford University Nikkei; Board of Directors, Civil Liberties Public Education Fund; and the Oahu AJA Veterans Council, comprised of the following Hawaiian organizations: Club 100, an Association of Veterans of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Veterans Club, Military Intelligence Service Club, and 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion.
As a solution to the controversy, Senator Daniel K. Inouye has suggested that all names and quotations be removed from the memorial. JAvoice.com: Committee for a Fair and Accurate Japanese American Memorial agrees with this solution.
JAvoice.com is a core group of volunteers who have sought to correct the inscriptions and to inform and educate the public. Further information about the inscriptions and historical context of the controversy can be found at the website, http://www.JAvoice.com. Although the first-round list of names has been turned in to Secretary Babbitt, additional signatures will be submitted as they come in.
In a letter to Secretary Babbitt, JAvoice.com wrote, "The Japanese American national memorial must uphold foundations of civil and constitutional rights. It offends one’s sense of justice to include inscriptions that are offensive to large segments of society, and that represent the view that one’s civil and constitutional rights can and should be compromised under government order."
Contacts: JAvoice.com: Committee for a Fair and Accurate Japanese American Memorial
|