Speaking of Executive Order 9066, I recently finished another book about the law not being applied equally: Slanted: How an Asian American Troublemaker Took on the Supreme Court by Simon Tam.
(I recommend this book.)
In the process of going over their court case, others are referenced, including some that argued against internment. The legal cases weren't really what stuck with me, but for more information on those specific cases, a good starting point can be https://www.thoughtco.com/supreme-court-cases-involving-japanese-internment-2834827.
I mentioned some convergence yesterday. I was reading about the loss of Japanese property as a windfall for other people in the cities. At the same time I was being reminded of the financial losses that accompanied the deaths with the Tulsa race massacre. It worked together as a reminder of how racism serves capitalism.
There was some other convergence on the topic of language.
Fictionally, in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry's parents forbid him to speak Chinese anymore, demanding that he only speak English. As they do not speak English, this has a negative impact on family communication, but shows the pressure that was felt to clearly not be Japanese, despite that in no way leading to being accepted as American in 1941 Seattle.
In real life, Simon Tam was nearly put into ESL and advised not to speak any Chinese languages as a child lest it give him an accent. Tam was born in San Diego in 1981.
Forty years after Pearl Harbor, we were still racist.
Forty years after that, we have a better understanding of how valuable it is to be at least bilingual if not multilingual, and how starting early helps. Some parents pay heavily for immersion programs.
Somehow, we are still racist.
Of course, at the same time that I was reading these books, news was breaking of mass graves being found at a residential school in Kamloops. Residential schools were also places where children were forbidden to speak their family languages, and severely punished. That wasn't the only abuse that happened at the schools, but the pure superiority and despising of all that was native was never going to discourage abuse.
It's genocide. Even when there were not deliberate deaths, trying to destroy a group and their identity is genocide. Destroying family ties plays a role.
And -- even when your means of destroying a group is intended to be more the identity and community and language -- physical deaths happen. Not being premeditated murder doesn't always mean it was an accident.
I'm just going to leave this here:
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