By Leonard Chan and Edison Uno

Introduction to the Following Article

Recently, we participated in the 46th Annual San Jose Day of Remembrance (DOR) event.

When I describe this commemorative day to people that may be unfamiliar with Japanese American history, it usually includes a quick explanation of February 19th as being the day that President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 (the order that resulted in the incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent into American concentration camps during World War II).

In actuality, the first DOR was really created as part of the Redress Movement (a movement to get restitution for the incarcerees). The Densho Encyclopedia has an interesting article on the Day of Remembrance and credits playwright Frank Chin with coming up with the idea in hopes of revitalizing the redress movement.

The first commemoration was held in Seattle on November 25, 1978. Soon after and ever since, other communities such as Portland, San Francisco, and San Jose have also held their own DOR events on or near February 19 to coincide with the anniversary date of the signing of Executive Order 9066.

Edison Uno, the person that wrote the following article is often credited with being one of the first people to push for reparations for those that were so unjustly incarcerated. When I was doing some research on Edison Uno’s articles written for the Japanese American Citizens League’s newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, I found the following column in their November 23, 1973, edition of their paper.

Although I was knowledgeable of Edison’s early role in the redress movement, this article shows that he was also one of the first to point out that February 19th should be a commemorative day of remembrance.

Author Frank Abe, who was one of the organizers for the 1978 event in Seattle, has informed me that he was unaware of Edison’s article and could not say for certain if the article had any connection with the actual creation of the first DOR event.

Even though Edison Uno did not live long enough to have directly participated in any DOR events, there is no doubt that his spirit and views live on in them.

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Article Courtesy of the Pacific Citizen Digital Archives/www.pacificcitizen.org

The article can specifically be found in the archive at Vol. 077 #21, Nov. 23, 1973

A Minority of One: Commemorative Dates

By Edison Uno

As an active proponent for multicultural curriculum in our public school system, I am often asked in workshops and panel discussions about the Japanese American Experience. One question which is often asked is, “what special dates do Japanese Americans celebrate?” Naturally, if one is a Buddhist or Christian, religious holidays are observed and celebrated.

However, as an ethnic group, I don’t know of any special holiday or date that is unique to our heritage, perhaps with the exception of the traditional Japanese New Year, which like most other Americans, is usually a festive and happy day. As a Nisei, I look forward to the Japanese custom of greeting old friends, sharing some of the traditional foods prepared for this special holiday, and perhaps like most other Americans I celebrate the New Year by watching the colorful Rose Bowl Parade and the annual Rose Bowl game… a blending of two different cultures, some would say.

In recent years, Blacks have received official recognition of Martin Luther King Day as a holiday by some institutions. I understand that some of the Jewish Holy days are sanctioned by some schools and employers as holidays.

When I responded to a school teacher who asked about special dates observed by Japanese Americans, her question was well intended since she was in the process of making a multi-ethnic calendar for her children and wanted to be sure every ethnic holiday was included in her project. I don’t recall the various dates and their significance but she must have rattled off at least two dozen such dates.

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If I were asked to recommend one commemorative date, I would suggest the date Feb. 19-the date in 1942 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his Executive Order 9066 which ultimately resulted in the historic episode known as the Evacuation. In my opinion, the Evacuation of 110,000 persons of Japanese descent from the West Coast in the Spring of 1942 is the most important aspect of my Japanese American heritage.

Authors of “Prejudice, War, and the Constitution” describe it thusly,

“…the Japanese American episode of World War II looms as a great and evil blotch upon our national history. The whole vast, harsh, and discriminatory program of uprooting and imprisonment – initiated by the generals, advised, ordered, and supervised by civilian heads of the War Department, authorized by the court, and supported by the people – is without parallel in our past and full of ominous foreboding for our future.

“The entire Japanese American program violated and degraded the basic individualism which sustains a democracy. It impaired the trial tradition of the common law. It disparaged the principle that guilt is individual. It sapped the vitality of the precept of equality. It made racism a constitutional principle. It tolerated preventive incarceration for assumed disloyal beliefs and attitudes – unaccompanied by acts – attributing them without proof, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion to an entire group on a basis of race. Reckless and unnecessarily, it loosened judicial control of the military and produced dangerous imbalance in our government.”

Whether one agrees or disagrees with this the indictment made by the three authors, Jacobus tenBroek, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson of the University of California, the fact of the matter is the collective experience of those dark days following Pearl Harbor are indeed history which no American can deny.

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A second date which we should solemnize is Dec. 18 – the date in 1944 when the entire Evacuation was upheld, validated, legalized, and ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court in Korematsu vs. U.S.” This second date would be a very sad date for all Americans, because it justifies a great injustice, it makes racism an official public policy, and it legalizes all of the democratic social values, thereby weakening the system and the Constitution we believe in.

As an organization representative of a large segment of the Japanese community, I believe the JACL should advocate the national recognition of these two days – Feb. 19 and Dec. 18.