More than 50 years ago I was one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans living in California, Washington and Oregon who were sent to exile in 10 isolated detention centers ringed with barbed wire fences and watchtowers with armed sentinels. We were deprived of our constitutional rights and without any charges or individual hearings ordered on a few weeks notice to pack our belongings and sent to the internment centers.
Now with the current Japan-bashing accelerated by politicians both Japanese and American, and by Americans devastated by unemployment and business failures, Japanese-Americans are once again becoming targets of Japan-bashers. An elderly American accosted me at a shopping center parking lot and demanded where I came from. After learning that I was a native-born American and had also volunteered from an internment center to serve in the Pacific campaign in the military intelligence services, my questioner said he had served in the Battle of the Bulge and became very friendly.
Has it now come to a stage where those of us of Japanese or other Asian descent have to carry our birth certificate, Army discharge papers or wear an ”I`m An American” badge?
