Maria Hinojosa, a very respected journalist for NPR and PBS who’s currently working on a Frontline documentary about the detention camps holding Latin Americans suspected of being illegal immigrants, visited the University of Colorado this week. She gave a speech Tuesday night but that day she had a casual free lunch discussion with students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She described the film she’s working on, and some of the heartbreaking stories of families torn apart and the shame and embarrassment the detainees face.
Her description conjured up for me how Japanese American families must have felt in 1942 as they were being rounded up and sent to internment camps in desolate parts of the Western United States during World War II, including Heart Mountain in Wyoming, shown above with a still-standing tarpaper-covered barrack.
I asked her, since February 19 is the annual Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans, if she found it especially ironic that she’s working on this documentary and giving a speech this week.
Hinojosa looked at me, stunned. She clearly knew about Japanese American internment. But she had no idea there was such as thing as Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans.
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