I’ve read about, and talked about, and written about the internment of over 110,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II, so much that in a weird way, I’ve come to think of internment as a clinical, historical event. But once in a while, I’m reminded of the human scale of the tragedy, and feel the pain personally, of families who were wrenched from their lives on the West Coast and sent to concentration camps in godforsaken places inland.
When journalist Seth Rosenfeld wrote in a San Francisco Chronicle article in August that Richard Aoki, the mysterious Japanese American who was one of the leaders of the radical Black Panther Party, was an FBI informant during the turbulent 1960s, the revelation exploded within the Asian American community.
The bombshell brought on a fussilade of defenses of Aoki’s place as a revered activist and civil rights leader.
Aoki had become a godfather of Asian American activism for his role as “Field Marshall” for the Panthers, and getting the revolutionary group its first guns and firearms training. After his time as the only high-level Asian with the Black Panthers, he became an educator and counselor, and committed suicide in 2009 after an illness and hospitalization.
Rosenfeld’s article was a sham, and not based on credible or complete information, claimed the critics. After all, it ran in the Chronicle the same week that his new book about the FBI’s long history of surveillance and infiltration of radical groups at the University of California at Berkeley, “Subversives,” was published. But after the FBI released stacks of more documents that confirmed Rosenfeld’s assertions, even diehard Asian American supporters and Panther-era friends had to admit that Aoki must have lived a double life.
He was apparently recruited in the early 1960s as an informant starting when he was a student after getting out of the Army, and stayed on the FBI’s payroll well into the 1970s, when he had settled into a career as a college counselor and teacher, and had no more radical organizations he could inform on.
Here’s a video about Aoki and the FBI that was produced by the Center for Investigative Journalism, where Rosenfeld works: Continue reading →
Filmmaker Linda Hattendorf posted the sad news today on the Facebook page for “The Cats of Mirikitani,” the wonderful and powerful documentary she made in 2006:
It is with deep deep sorrow that we must share the sad news that our dear friend Jimmy Mirikitani passed away on Sunday October 21. He was 92 years old. Thank you for all the love you have shown him; his friends and fans meant the world to him.
There will be a public memorial on December 9 at 5 pm in New York at the Japanese American Association, 15 West 44th Street, 11th floor, New York, NY 10036. All are welcome.
Mirikitani turned 92 this past summer, just before he visited Denver for a whirlwind weekend for an opening reception at a gallery exhibit of his artwork, and a screening of Hattendorf’s film. (The video above is from the gallery opening, when he was presented with a birthday cake.)
Mirikitani and the filmmaker, along with the film’s producer Masa Yoshikawa, had been on the road for a week already, and attended a pilgrimage to the Tule Lake internment camp from San Francisco. After Denver, the trio were headed to New Mexico for another screening and art exhibit.
He was adorable, a feisty old man full of good humor and the determined energy that served him through his long journey through the edges of American society. Continue reading →
Over the years, I’ve been surprised that many Japanese Americans aren’t interested in Japan or even visiting Japan, mostly because they’re embarrassed that they don’t speak Japanese, or they feel entirely American.
I think it’s more important than ever for Japanese Americans to follow events in Japan.
The fact is, Japan is on the precipice of some potentially treacherous political turmoil. Most Americans are unaware of Japan’s dysfunctional democracy, which has led to a seven prime ministers in the past decade. The government has been unable to jumpstart a stalled economy, and there are a lot of disgruntled people, not just in the northeast who are still recovering from the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, but throughout the country.
And like the U.S., where the economic downturn has spurred the rise of some ugly, even racist, political and social movements like the one that keeps promoting the anti-Obama “birther” theory, and cloaking it in the veil of patriotism, national pride in Japan is rearing its ugly head. Continue reading →
Unbelievable. Again and again, I’m reminded how some Americans have a stubborn racist streak that’s covered up by a veneer of political correctness, but comes out with just a little bit of provocation.
Last year, people expressed ignorant racist hatred against Japanese … after the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 that devastated northeast Japan. Many referred to the disaster as “revenge” for Pearl Harbor, the military attack on the U.S. base in Hawai’i that pushed the United States into World War II.
Today, during what’s supposed to be the peaceful international celebration of athletics and goodwill, competition and sportsmanship that is the Olympic Games, that same ugly reference to Pearl Harbor came up … when the U.S. women’s soccer team defeated the Japanese in a 2-1 contest for the Gold medal.
The Huffington Post quotes some of the racist tripe, such as “This was payback for the USS Arizona! Take that you Japs!” by a Twitter user who describes himself thus: Continue reading →
I’ve read about, and talked about, and written about the internment of over 110,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II, so much that in a weird way, I’ve come to think of internment as a clinical, historical event. But once in a while, I’m reminded of the human scale of the tragedy, and feel the pain personally, of families who were wrenched from their lives on the West Coast and sent to concentration camps in godforsaken places inland.
