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By Judy Tachibana

(An editorial published in the Sacramento Bee, March 8, 2000)

A 59-year-old dispute within the Japanese-American community simmers on. A recent eruption though will have a broader impact since it will determine the words, and thus the historical perspective, etched on an $11 million national memorial in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Commission on Fine Arts and the National Park Service are examining the disagreement between proponents of the national Japanese American Citizens League and those who maintain that JACL seized power by betraying neighbors as the U.S. government incarcerated 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, during WWII.

Specifically, the battle is over whether to include on the monument the name of controversial JACL figure Mike Masaoka and a portion of a creed he penned.

Even before incarceration, Masaoka and other JACL leaders were accused by many of being informers, or inu (dogs). Those leaders were despised for giving the FBI names of people of Japanese ancestry whom they considered suspicious. With older community leaders arrested, the young JACL spokesmen claimed to speak for the community and urged cooperation with U.S. government orders for mass evacuation to internment camps.

In those camps, JACL leaders continued to collaborate with authorities and received favored treatment. Resentment and hatred grew so that JACL leaders at Manzanar, in the Owens Valley in eastern California, had to be removed for their own protection after a protest by internees ended with the deaths of two young men.

Some of the internees -- such as Harry Ueno, who was suspected of, but not charged with, the beating of a JACL informer at Manzanar that led to the "Manzanar incident" -- were removed from their families at internment camps and confined in even more remote isolation centers.

In Wyoming, Heart Mountain resisters served time in federal prison as a result of their opposition to the military draft of forced evacuees, an idea promoted by the JACL. Some 300 or so of the incarcerated young men refused to be drafted so long as they and their families were forced to remain in the camps. They also refused to "forswear allegiance and obedience to the Japanese emperor" because to have answered yes would have meant that at some time these U.S. citizens had sworn allegiance to Japan.

In his 1987 autobiography, "They Call Me Moses Masaoka," Masaoka called it his "patriotic duty" to cooperate with the FBI. As a young man, he had written what he called the "Japanese American Creed": "I am proud that I am an American of Japanese ancestry. ... I believe in her institutions, ideals and traditions. I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future." His words were later adopted as part of the JACL bylaws. Masaoka's name and his connection with the JACL continue to elicit strong feelings. Many accuse Masaoka, who died in 1991, and the JACL with colluding with government officials rather than fighting for the constitutional rights of those unjustly incarcerated.

The emotional conflict surfaced recently within the nonprofit National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, whose board includes some JACL supporters who insist that Masaoka and his words be part of the monument.

But a minority on the board vehemently disagrees, accusing the foundation of ramming through the approval of an inscription without disseminating the proposed wording to the public. The dissenting board members feel that the JACL, as it did during the war, is usurping the voice of the community.

Masaoka should be neither glorified nor skewered. His place in history is yet to be determined. But it is certain that singling out his name and words for recognition and inclusion on the monument continues to be divisive in the Japanese American community. That is not the goal.

"If the text is etched in stone, as it is currently proposed, it will mar the integrity of the entire memorial, splinter the community and continue to stir a controversy," writes Rita Takahashi, a board member and San Francisco State University professor.

The purpose is to establish a monument that the community can be proud of, one that tells the story of unjust incarceration based solely on ethnic background and one that reminds us to fight for democracy and against injustice, as did those who dissented in U.S. internment camps as well as those who fought during WWII.

Because the national memorial will be visited by Americans and international visitors long after the dust has settled on today's controversy, the wording must be accurate and honestly reflect the community.

Judy Tachibana is a freelance writer in Sacramento, CA.