Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 2020)
U.S.A. Page 10 n THE ASIAN REPORTER March 2, 2020 California apologizes for internment of Japanese Americans By Cuneyt Dil The Associated Press S ACRAMENTO, Calif. — Les Ouchida was born an American just outside California’s capital city, but his citizenship mattered little after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war. Based solely on their Japanese ancestry, the five-year-old and his family were taken from their home in 1942 and imprisoned far away in Arkansas. They were among 120,000 Japanese Americans held at 10 internment camps during World War II, their only fault being “we had the wrong last names and wrong faces,” said Ouchida, now 82 and living a short drive from where he grew up and was taken as a boy due to fear that Japanese Americans would side with Japan in the war. California’s Legislature approved a resolution offering an apology to Ouchida and other internment victims for the state’s role in aiding the U.S. government’s policy and condemning actions that helped fan anti-Japanese discrimination. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order No. 9066 establishing the camps was signed on February 19, 1942, and 2/19 now is marked by Japanese Americans as a Day of Remembrance. Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi was born in Japan and is one of the roughly 430,000 people of Japanese descent living in California, the largest Japanese population of any state. The Democrat who represents Manhattan Beach and other beach communities near Los Angeles introduced the resolution. “We like to talk a lot about how we lead the nation by example,” he said. “Unfor- tunately, in this case, California led the racist anti-Japanese-American move- ment.” A congressional commission in 1983 concluded that the detentions were a result of “racial prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership.” Five years later, the U.S. government formally apologized and paid $20,000 in reparations to each victim. The money didn’t come close to replacing what was lost. Ouchida says his father owned a profitable delivery business with 20 trucks. He never fully recovered from losing his business and died early. The California resolution doesn’t come with any compensation. It targets the actions of the California Legislature at the time for supporting the internments. Two camps were located in the state — Manzanar on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in central California and Tule Lake near the Oregon state line, the largest of all the camps. Muratsuchi wanted the “California Legislature to officially acknowledge and apologize while these camp survivors are still alive.” The apology took place last month. He said anti-Japanese sentiment began in California as early as 1913, when the state passed the California Alien Land Law, targeting Japanese farmers who some in California’s massive agricultural industry perceived as a threat. Seven years later the state barred anyone with Japanese ancestry from buying farmland. The internment of Ouchida, his older brother, and parents began in Fresno, California. Three months later they were sent to Jerome, Arkansas, where they stayed for most of the war. Given their young ages at the time, many living victims such as Ouchida don’t remember much of life in the camps. But he does recall straw-filled mattresses and little privacy. Communal bathrooms had rows of APOLOGY ISSUED. Les Ouchida holds a 1943 photo of himself, front row, center, and his siblings taken at the internment camp his family was moved to, as he poses at the permanent exhibit titled “Uprooted! Japanese Americans in World War II” at the California Museum in Sacramento, California. Ouchida, who is a docent for the exhibit, and his fam- ily were forced to move in 1942 from their home near Sacramento. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) toilets with no barriers between users. “They put a bag over their heads when they went to the bathroom” for privacy, said Ouchida, who teaches about the internments at the California Museum in Sacramento. Before the last camp was closed in 1946, Ouchida’s family was shipped to a facility in Arizona. When the family was freed, they took a Greyhound bus back to Califor- nia. When it reached a stop sign near their community outside Sacramento, “I still remember the ladies on the bus started crying,” Ouchida said. “Because they were home.” The resolution, co-introduced by California Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido, makes a passing reference to “recent national events” and says they serve as a reminder “to learn from the mistakes of the past.” Muratsuchi said the inspiration for that passage were migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year. Ouchida said Japanese families like his always considered themselves loyal citizens before and after the internments. He holds no animosity toward the U.S. or California governments, choosing to focus on positives outgrowths like the perma- nent exhibit at the California Museum that provides an unvarnished view of the internments. “Even if it took time, we have the goodness to still apologize,” he said. Hit the road: Shohei Ohtani got driver license in offseason By Greg Beacham The Associated Press T EMPE, Ariz. — Shohei Ohtani doesn’t just drive the ball anymore. The Los Angeles Angels’ two-way star says he got his California driver license in the offseason, putting the 25-year-old behind the wheel of a car for the first time. “I’m enjoying it,” Ohtani said through his interpreter 9 2 6 5 6 4 8 2 7 5 1 8 3 4 5 9 7 3 1 8 4 9 EASY Difficulty 5 6 3 7 2 1 4 level: Easy Continued from page 5 # 47 #92656 Puzzle #73281 (Hard) All solutions available at <www.sudoku.com>. 9 8 3 1 4 5 2 7 6 6 1 7 2 9 8 5 3 4 4 2 5 7 3 6 8 1 9 5 4 8 3 6 9 1 2 7 TWO-WAY STAR. Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels throws during spring training baseball practice in Tempe, Arizona. During the offseason, the two-way star says he got his California driver license. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) nothing for granted as he prepares for his mound return. “I still can’t say I’m fully confident, because I only pitched in 10 games,” Ohtani said. “A lot of the teams were facing me for the first time. I think in that case, the pitcher has the edge. So after I face the same team multiple times and still have good results, that’s probably when I’ll start building more confidence.” Thousands light up joints during Hindu festival in Nepal 7 Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1 through 9 appear one time each in every row, col- umn, and 3x3 box. Solution to last issue’s puzzle after rolling up to the Angels’ spring training complex in his Tesla. “I was able to pass it the first time, so not too much stress.” Ohtani never got a license in his native Japan because the process is longer and more expensive, and he didn’t need to drive himself anywhere in Sapporo thanks to public transportation and his team. Since he joined the Angels in 2018 and moved to car-centric Southern California, he had been driven around by other people. Ohtani says he thinks he’s a “pretty good” driver already, although he still hasn’t driven onto the Los Angeles area’s famous freeways by himself. With his recovery from Tommy John surgery in its final stages, Ohtani has plenty of other work to do this spring as he prepares to return to the Angels’ rotation in mid-May. Ohtani will be able to hit for the Halos from the opening game of spring, but manager Joe Maddon has said the team is ramping up his pitching work gradually in a bid to keep him fresh for the long season ahead. Ohtani made 10 starts for the Angels during his AL Rookie of the Year season in 2018, going 4-2 with a 3.31 Earned Run Average (ERA) and a 1.161 Walks & Hits per Innings Pitched (WHIP). Although he clearly demon- strated the tantalizing talent that made every team in baseball eager to land his services, Ohtani is taking 7 6 1 8 2 4 3 9 5 3 9 2 5 7 1 6 4 8 2 7 9 6 5 3 4 8 1 1 3 6 4 8 7 9 5 2 8 5 4 9 1 2 7 6 3 Nepal was famous for marijuana and other narcotics in the 1960s, when hippies made their way to the Himalayan nation. Shops and tea houses used to advertise and sell it legally. However, marijuana was outlawed in 1976.