Islamophobia: A reminder of Japanese-American internment

At various times in his life and the lives of other members of the Sikh faith living here – the Persian Gulf wars, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the current climate of anti-Islam rhetoric and violence – Jaipal Singh says he has been misidentified as a Muslim and targeted. He says his religion and common decency require him to stand with Muslims and against injustice.

In 1942, at age 7, the youngest of five children living in a small northern California town, Gordon Yoshikawa was sent with his mother and later his father to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans near the Oregon border. They were incarcerated for more than three years before moving to Cincinnati. He says frightening similarities in today's political landscape to national attitudes at the start of World War II require him to speak out on behalf of American Muslims.

Singh and Yoshikawa are two of four panelists who will participate Saturday at the University of Cincinnati in an event, "From Citizen to Enemy? Looking back at Japanese American incarceration to understand modern-day Islamophobia." The two-hour event will begin at 2 p.m. at the UC College of Law.

Another panelist, Roula Allouch, a Cincinnati lawyer and national leader of a major Muslim-advocacy group, welcomes the support of people from outside of American Islam.

"It's uplifting and inspiring to hear them," said Allouch, 36, now in her second two-year term as chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) board. "We can overcome. Our values and principles are better than what happened to Japanese-Americans, what is happening to Muslim-Americans today and the ongoing treatment of African-Americans. We are better than that.

"We all know the danger of history repeating itself. The parallels are staggering. We have to know our history."

Alarmed by the heightened state of anti-Islam rhetoric and violence against Muslims – how it echoes the past – leaders of the Cincinnati chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League approached the local CAIR office and proposed the public event. Leaders of the local Sikh community and leadership of the Greater Cincinnati Chinese Chamber of Commerce, in the person of its executive director, Tessa Xuan, joined the effort.

"We recognize what happened to the Japanese-American community was so wrong in so many ways," said Karen Dabdoub, executive director of CAIR Ohio-Cincinnati. "And they said they didn't want to see the `otherizing and demonizing' of another community."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called to bar all Muslims from entering the United States following terrorist attacks by extremists tied to the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Trump also has proposed the creation of a database to track American Muslims.

A witness to history

The surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941 on Pearl Harbor was only the beginning of anti-Japanese sentiment across the United States. Its series of military victories against the Americans in the early months of World War II raised fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast with the help of Japanese people living there.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. It authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and permanent residents from Japan. The order also allowed for the establishment of 10 "war relocation centers," where 120,000 Japanese-Americans, about 80,000 of them U.S. citizens, were interned during the war. About half were children, like Gordon.

Yoshikawa remembers his parents, both of whom were born in Japan and emigrated, being forced to secure two identification cards: a local one and the other issued by the U.S. Department of Justice referred to as an alien registration. It required a photograph, fingerprints, signature and physical description. His father, Minoru Yoshikawa, had come to the United States in 1906 and worked in a grocery.

"The idea of an alien registration card, I am hoping things don't go that far for American Muslims," Gordon Yoshikawa said.

In 1943, the government began relocating Japanese-Americans to inland cities such as Minneapolis, Cleveland, Chicago and Cincinnati. One of Gordon's sisters moved to Cincinnati to work for the YWCA, which led to his migration here with his parents in 1945. An Amberley Village resident, he retired as a chemist from the BASF plant in Evanston in 1991.

"Back then I was too young to know what was going on," he said of his experience in camps in California and Utah. "People need to know about what other people went through because of general public mistrust. We had people who supported us in the 1940s. We should be people who support the Muslims. It's important somebody stand up and say something."

`An attack on any one of us'

As a Sikh man, Jaipal Singh is required to wear an unshorn beard and turban, known as a dastar, to cover his long hair.

Sikhism is not Islam. Sikhism originates in the Punjab region of south Asia.

Still, for the 35-year old West Chester Township native and resident, some people can't tell the difference. He says he and some of the other 1 million Sikhs across the country are misidentified as Muslim and have been targeted verbally and violently.

While driving his car, he has been harassed by a white male motorcyclist, who drove violently, screamed profanity and made obscene gestures toward him. He says he and other Sikhs have been told to "go back to their own country." They receive judgmental stares in stores and elsewhere in public. Sikh children are often bullied in school.

"In every period of history, a certain group of a cultural group is cast outside and viewed with suspicion," said Singh, an architect who works in downtown Cincinnati and a leader of the 700-family Guru Nanak Society gurdwara faith community, Hamilton. "Sikhs have not been targeted yet, but as we continue to grow, as more Sikhs become integrated into the American fabric, what's next? We believe an attack on any one of us is an attack on all of us."

Sikhs were attacked in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, four years ago this month. A lone gunman, an avowed white supremacist, shot 10 people, killing six, during a communal meal at a gurdwara.

Singh is a tireless advocate for his community. He spoke in an Oak Creek massacre memorial at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

"Throughout our lives, we are on a path toward either freedom or fear," he said. "All of the anti-Muslim rhetoric, the hatred, is rooted in fear of the unknown. Fear of the other leads to anger, anger to hate, and hate to suffering. We cannot let it control us."

IF YOU GO

"From Citizen to Enemy? Looking back at Japanese American incarceration to understand modern-day Islamophobia," a panel discussion, will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, 2540 Clifton Ave., University Heights.

Panelists are Emily Houh, co-director of UC Law's Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice; Roula Allouch, a Cincinnati-based lawyer and chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations board; Gordon Yoshikawa, who was imprisoned in an internment camp with his parents during World War II; and Sikh community activist Jaipal Singh of the Guru Nanak Society. The moderator will be Verna Williams, a professor and co-director of UC Law's Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice.