The other side of Pearl Harbor

Jeff Adachi / The San Francisco Sentinel 26may01

Jeff Adachi is the former Chief Attorney of the SF Public Defender's Office and is a candidate for Public Defender.

I, like many Japanese Americans, await the release of the film "Pearl Harbor," with some anxiety and trepidation. Although Hollywood has promised a more sensitive treatment of the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor, the thought of another Japan vs. America movie threatens to reopen old wounds and ignite already existing anti-Japanese and Asian sentiments, particularly in light of a recent poll reporting that anti-Asian prejudice is at an all-time high.

I first learned of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor in my third grade history class. Afterwards, on the school yard, a boy named George called me a "jap" and started a fight with me because "my parents had bombed Pearl Harbor." That evening, I asked my mother if she had anything to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She explained to me that she was third generation American and had as little to do with Pearl Harbor as George's German-American parents had to do with Hitler's reign of terror.

What I didn't realize at that age is that my parents had paid a terrible price for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Within months of December 1941, my mother, father and their families, along with 110,000 other Japanese Americans, were given 48 hours to vacate their homes, close their businesses and churches, get rid of all of their possessions and report to assembly centers.

From there, they were shipped off to spend the next four years in barbed wire internment camps in Rohwer, Arkansas and Gila River, Arizona. Even though neither my mother or father had never even been to Japan, they suffered the wrath of America's anger.

The internment took a great toll upon Japanese American culture. In camp, parents did not teach their children Japanese language, customs or religion in fear that they might be accused of being Japanese nationalists. Even with their American citizenship, they were forced to submit to loyalty oaths to prove their allegiance to America. For some, proving their loyalty became an obsession. Despite objections from their distressed families, many young Japanese American men enlisted in the US army, fighting in segregated battalions which later became the most decorated units in history.

After they were released from the camps, Japanese Americans faced poverty and a country full of hostility and racism. My grandparents and parents had to rebuild their lives, working in menial jobs to support their family. It took them decades to reach a point where they could live a relatively normal life. But they were never able to fully recover from the social and economic devastation that they experienced during their internment.

Pearl Harbor was a horrible tragedy for the many hundreds of soldiers and innocent people and children who were killed and maimed. This country should never forget the sacrifices of those who lost their lives in the attack. However, it must also not be forgotten that there was another side to Pearl
Harbor that forever changed the destiny of the Japanese American community. Pearl Harbor must be remembered as a day of infamy for all Americans --  including Japanese Americans.


Jeff Adachi  
jeffadachi@yahoo.com
jeffadachi.com