2004
FRED KOREMATSU REGARDING INTERNMENT CAMP CURRICULUM CHALLENGE
Fox
News media personality Michelle
Malkin claims that some Japanese Americans were spies during World
War II. Based upon her suspicions, Malkin
claims the internment
of all Japanese
Americans was not such a bad idea after all. She goes on to claim
that racial profiling of Arab Americans today is justified by the need
to fight terrorism. According to Malkin,
it is OK to take away an entire ethnic group's civil rights because
some individuals are suspect. Malkin
argues for reviving the old notion of guilt by association. It is painful
to see reopened for serious
debate the question of whether the government was justified in imprisoning
Japanese Americans during World War II. It was my hope that my case
and the cases of other Japanese
American internees would be remembered for the dangers of racial
and ethnic scapegoating. Fears and prejudices directed against minority
communities are too easy to evoke and exaggerate, often to serve the
political agendas of those who promote those fears. I know what it is
like to be at the other end of such scapegoating and how difficult it
is to clear one's name after unjustified suspicions are endorsed as
fact by the government. If someone is a spy or terrorist they should
be prosecuted for their actions. But no one should ever be locked away
simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a
spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment
of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our
democracy. Fred
Korematsu was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential
Medial of Freedom, in 1998. He and his wife, Kathryn, continue to live
in their longtime hometown of San Leandro.
2004
R.I.P. - ALFRED H. SONG
Alfred
H. Song, the first Asian American elected to the California Legislature,
whose achievements during a 16-year career in Sacramento were overshadowed
by allegations of political corruption, has died on October 11, 2004
at the age of 85. He
moved to the state Senate in 1966 and developed a reputation as one
of the Legislature's foremost legal experts. His leadership positions
included the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the
Senate Democratic Caucus, which he helped found.
His legislative
career ended in 1978 amid reports that he was the subject of an FBI
probe into political wrongdoing. The federal government later dropped
its investigation of Song after concluding that no prosecution was warranted.
Song was a Hawaii native of Korean ancestry whose parents worked on
sugar plantations. He attended USC, where he earned a bachelor's degree
in 1942. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War
II, he returned to USC for a law degree in 1945.
Stylish and
cosmopolitan, Song served on the Monterey Park City Council from 1960
to 1962 before representing a broader swath of the San Gabriel Valley
as an assemblyman and senator.
Most notable among
those bills was one that overhauled the California Evidence Code, a
guide to rules of evidence admissible in
court. Song also successfully carried legislation that gave credit
card customers greater protection against hidden costs and toughened
regulations against fraudulent appliance warranties.
Another Song
bill created the office of the state public defender.He said his proudest
accomplishment in Sacramento was a law designed to protect minority
voters from harassment at the polls.
2004
ARKANSAS HONORES INTERNEES AT JEROME & ROHWER CAMPS
Leaving their
families in barbed wire-encircled internment
camps, hundreds of Japanese-Americans enlisted in the Army to fight
in Europe during World War II. Arkansas
paid tribute to the sacrifice in September in a four-day event commemorating
the history of two
camps in the southeastern part of the state at Little
Rock's MacArthur Museum, the only ones in the South. Eight camps
were in the West. More than 120,000
Japanese-Americans were sent from the West Coast and Hawaii to 10
internment camps in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Between 1942 and
1945, the Arkansas
camps — at Jerome and Rohwer — held 16,000 detainees.
2004
R.I.P. - REV. JONATHAN CHAO
Rev. Jonathan
Chao, a Christian missionary who spent 25 years teaching his faith in
his native China and tracking the development of Christianity in that
country under Communist rule, has died of Lymphoma at the Citrus Valley
Hospice in West Covina on January 12 at the age of 65.
2004
JOHN CHEN ELECTED TO DISNEY BOARD
The Walt Disney
Company Board of Directors elected John
S. Chen, chairman, CEO and president of Sybase, Inc., as a new independent
director, effective January
2004.
2004
1ST FILIPINO BISHOP
Oscar Azarcon Solis,
the first Filipino American
Bishop in the United States was ordained in Los Angeles and his job
in the archdiocese will be to unify various Catholic
ethnic groups. The ordination of Oscar Azarcon Solis, 50, was attended
by about 3,600 people, including about 400 priests and 40 bishops from
the U.S. and the Philippines. Solis is now one of five auxiliary bishops
for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which represents Los
Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Solis speaks English, Tagalog,
Spanish and Creole. He was born in the Philippines and ordained a priest
there in 1979. He immigrated to the United States in 1984 and worked as
an associate pastor in Newark, N.J., for four years. He then spent 15
years in Louisiana, most recently as pastor of St. Joseph Co- Cathedral
in Thibodaux. Note: Of about 5 million Catholics in the archdiocese, about
400,000 are Filipino.
2004
R.I.P. - HIRAM FONG (POLITICIAN)
Hiram
L. Fong, a Hawaii Republican who served in the U.S. Senate from 1959
to 1977 and rose from poverty to become a venerable figure in Pacific
politics, has died. He was 97.
2004
CITIES WITH OVER 50% ASIANS
Asians
now make up 61% of the population in Cerritos, 58% in Walnut, 52% in
Rowland Heights and 50%
in San Gabriel, San Marino and Rosemead.
