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San Mateo County Times – December 18, 2006
Japanese, Muslims recall racism
Pearl Harbor, 9/11 ushered in problems for minorities
Michael Manekin
When the Imperial Japanese Navy swooped over Pearl Harbor 65 years ago and destroyed more than 2,400 American lives, Mas Yamasaki was watching a church basketball game in Sacramento.
He was 12, and he didn't know that he would soon live in a detention camp at Tule Lake - sleeping on an Army-issued mattress, braving the elements without indoor plumbing or heat.
The child of Japanese immigrants, Yamasaki was born an American citizen. But he spent 31/2 years of his American childhood in the camp - he was considered a threat to national security.
The internment of Japanese immigrants is familiar to most Americans - in large part, because Yamasaki and legions of Japanese camp survivors have made their voices heard.
Now, Yamasaki and other survivors are speaking out against a new danger.
"We were stereotyped," said Yamasaki. "Now, with the Muslims, it's the same thing. Everyone's pointing fingers saying they're an enemy."
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stripped Japanese Americans of their homes and freedom. But five years ago, the actions of 19 hijackers radically altered the lives of the county's estimated 6 million Muslims.
"Pearl Harbor gave the United States the excuse to discriminate against Japanese Americans by saying these guys are potential saboteurs," said Steve Okamoto, co-president of the San Mateo chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). "Now, they're lumping (Muslims) together like they did with the Japanese."
Okamoto, 65, was only 6 weeks old when he and his family were shipped from their home to the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno and later to the Topaz internment camp in Utah.
After 9/11, Okamoto and other members of the JACL were the first non-Muslims to speak out against the swirling dust storm of anti-Muslim hate speech. Okamoto since has helped coordinate JACL forums with Muslim Americans to speak out on the dangerous excesses of stereotyping - both past and present.
In February, Imam Tahir Anwar, the director of religious services at the South Bay Islamic Center in San Jose, appeared at a JACL event to honor the Day of Remembrance - the day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and authorized the detention of Japanese Americans.
"The decisions that have been made by the administration after Sept. 11 - and the decisions made after Pearl Harbor - have not been very friendly to a lot of Americans," Anwar said last week. "People have suffered. After Pearl Harbor, it was the Japanese. And now, it's almost anyone who is a Muslim, looks like a Muslim, comes from a Muslim country or has anything that sounds like a Muslim last name." . . .
"You would imagine that we would learn after Pearl Harbor, but we just haven't learned the most important lesson: Don't judge people based on the color of their skin or what they look like," said Anwar.
Although Muslim Americans face stereotyping and spying, many of the most blatant victims of negative typecasting are Muslims on extended visits to the country. After 9/11, more than 1,000 men from Muslim countries were detained, mostly on immigration charges. Many of those charged were later deported…..
http://www.insidebayarea.com /trivalleyherald/ci_4859712
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