#jacl

Japanese American Civil Rights Group Pushes for Gaza Cease-Fire https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/world/middleeast/jacl-israel-gaza-cease-fire.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

This free series is geared toward youth, open to all, and created through an intergenerational committee of API activists, including our moderator Dr. Kyle Kinoshita. Japanese American youth: What needs to happen in our community so that we can be powerful accomplices in the movement for Black lives? How can we ensure that our cries for “Never Again is Now!” are rooted in collective BIPOC action—not simply in the self-interests of non-Black Nikkei or API's? Join us for these much-needed learning sessions where we’ll be “cleaning our own house” and examining our history (such as the creation of the "model minority" myth and Black/Asian solidarity). By coming together to learn and connect, we want to give you the anti-racist tools you need to navigate the world today, and to lay the foundation for a future we all believe in.

David Inoue, Executive Director [email protected], 202-607-7273

Ronald K. Kuramoto, President, Japanese American Citizens League, Wisconsin Chapter. [email protected]

Sarah Baker, VP Public Affairs [email protected]

In a May 5 hearing before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Justice Rebecca Bradley sought to make comparisons between the state ordered “Safer at Home” guidelines and the mass incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. JACL rejects this comparison as an insult to Japanese Americans who suffered the unconstitutional injustices of incarceration.

JACL Wisconsin Chapter President Ron Kuramoto states: “I believe Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley poses a false equivalency when she uses the “Safer at Home” policy as a comparison for Executive Order 9066, which forced my parents, extended family, and over 120,000 Japanese Americans out of their homes and into, in some cases, horse stalls at Santa Anita Racetrack in California, then transferred and imprisoned my own and other families for over three years in shoddily-built tarpaper barracks in the desert or other desolate places. Bradley’s hyperbole denigrates my parent’s suffering and endurance.”

JACL has previously called for caution in the invocation of historical comparisons to COVID-19 response. Kuramoto adds, “To ask all Wisconsin residents to shelter in their homes for a short, defined period of weeks, as a response to a public health crisis like a pandemic, bears no relation to the intentional, legally unjustifiable thinking that imprisoned my family indefinitely, and forced them to sell– not suspend– their businesses. Bradley may believe that she is arguing Constitutional principles, but her claim of a non-existent equivalency distorts the conversation and denigrates the history and experience of Japanese Americans.”

January 31, 2020 

For Immediate Release

David Inoue, Executive [email protected]

Sarah Baker, VP Public [email protected]

Today’s addition of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania expands he number of countries affected by the Muslim Ban to 13. Similar to the first ban, the people impacted are predominantly Muslim. But these new additions will also affect those fleeing persecution in places such as Myanmar. That these announcements have come in the same week as the three year anniversary of the issuance of the first Muslim Ban and Holocaust Memorial Day is reprehensible. We cannot recall the holocaust without acknowledging our country’s role in refusing holocaust refugees entry. As we now repeat the same mistake through this expanding and misguided policy, it would behoove us to question its validity and effectiveness.  Since the implementation of the first Muslim Ban, families have been forced to live apart, college student’s studies have halted, and lives have even been lost because of the restrictions. What has this ban truly done to protect our country?

The ban is a source of particular pain to the Japanese American community. The Supreme Court upheld the ban in its 2018 decision on the basis of national security. This was the exact same rationale used to uphold the World War II incarceration of nearly 120,000 people, many of whom were citizens, because of our national ancestry. The fact that Chief Justice Roberts went out of his way to repudiate the Korematsu decision was ironic in the decision’s reaffirmation of discrimination on the basis of national origin under the guise of national security. In neither case has the government been able to prove an actual security threat. 

The expansion of the Muslim Ban continues a pattern of discrimination by this country against communities of color as also seen in the policies of family separation and incarceration, changes to the public charge definition, and most recently, subjecting American citizens of Iranian ancestry to additional screening at the Canadian border. Having experienced the sting of restrictions on Asian immigration in the past, JACL opposes these broad attacks on immigration which stand in direct opposition to the ideals upon which this country was founded that we have yet to truly uphold. ###

On Saturday, November 16, 2019, chapter and community members will gather for the autumn Gila River Monument Clean-up. This visit will be marked as a time of remembrance. This project consists of picking up trash and painting over graffiti. Supplies, such as trash bags, paint, brushes, gloves, as well as water, will be provided. Participants are advised to wear outdoor-appropriate work clothing, footgear and sun protection.

Participants will assemble at the Casa Blanca Market/Gas Station (2577 Casa Blanca Road, Bapchule, AZ 85121, Exit 175 from the I-10) at 9:00 a.m., prompt. A Gila River Land Use Ordinance Officer will escort us onto the monument site via car caravan. If entering the site, participants are required to provide their names and the description and license plate of their vehicles to the officer. If interested in this project, please submit names and vehicle information to Donna Cheung [[email protected]] or 602-501-3505 by Saturday, November 9.

Lunch reception (12:30 p.m.) with featured exhibit at:

The Chandler Museum, 300 S. Chandler Village Drive, Chandler, AZ 85226

"Gaman: Enduring Japanese American Internment at Gila River,"

December 8, 2018-April 18, 2020.

The exhibit includes a wall of names of former incarcerees at the Gila River incarceration