World War II and Japanese Internment in the Seattle Star. Pretty amazing to think that this happened! (Roy: homes, college)

[509]

Originally Posted by rjshae

It's really not that different anywhere else. There is racism and discrimination everywhere you go.

Yes, but the reason my parents and I IMMIGRATED to America was to get away from the rampant racism and discrimination in the rest of the world. AND we are not Jews or members of any racial or minority group. Just poor.

WE CAN DO BETTER.

We need to vote out of office people with attitudes like AOC!!

[uniquetraveler]

To add to my earlier post, in spite of this gross general stereotypes and bias against minority communities, US is still the best place (maybe after Canada) in the world in terms of social justice and economic progression. Racism is much more prevalent in France, Germany, UAE, South Africa, Japan, China, India etc.

I remember having discussion with few folks about how we need to do better as a society to improve social equality, I was thrown comment like "why don't you go back to the country where you came from, if things are so good there?"--- But that is not the question here, for example when the puritans & the pilgrims immigrated to US from europe to escape religious persecution, they didn't rest on the laurel that things are just marginally better than their original country. They worked to establish a constitution and legal system that made fundamental changes around personal liberty and freedom. This in turn attracted the best talents from the whole world over the next few hundred years, making us the super power we are today.

Instead of working on change for the betterment of the society, those early european immigrants could have said "ohh well, things are the same all over the world, every country has monarchies and churches, why establish a democratic system with individual rights"-- guess where we will all be today in that case.

Today, America is the oldest democracy in the world, the model copied all over europe and many other nations. The legal and political system (in spite of some limitation) is a shining example to rest of the world. We can do the same when it comes to the area of human rights. Maybe one day Uighurs won't be discriminated by Han chinese, south asian workers by middle eastern shiekhs, african immigrants in France and Germany-- so on and so forth.

[PilgrimsProgress]

Originally Posted by rjshae

It's really not that different anywhere else. There is racism and discrimination everywhere you go.

Even within the races.

My Chinese doctor said Korean women are uglier than Chinese which is why plastic surgery is so popular in Korea.

My black coworker categorized other blacks by how dark they were. Hint: lighter skin is better.

[pnwguy2]

Somewhat related, when I was a child in Seattle in the late 60’s there was an air raid siren everyday at noon. Parents said it was just a test. We just shrugged and thought it was part of life. Of course this just a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a very tense period.

[AADAD]

My parents lived on Mt. Tantalus in Honolulu prior and during the war. During breakfast on December 7th they heard the Japanese planes bearing down. Mere hundreds of feet above their heads hundreds of Japanese planes armed to the teeth came over the east side of the island and headed for Pearl Harbor.

The attack on Pearl was merciless, vicious and deadly. Thousands drowned, were blown apart or killed on the Air Force bases. There was no where to run or hide. For weeks the men in the neighborhood were in the dark eating what they could and foraging for the rest. At night they grabbed their guns and sat motionless drinking coffee waiting for the invasion which did not come. I don't imagine any of them got a change of clothing. They lost weight, were hard pressed to venture out anywhere and all were steel eyed and terrified.

Isolated,3000 miles from the mainland, no phones no radios, dead bodies floating in the harbor, thousands of them. Before you get all squishy about internment camps...do the math.

That was war. Winners losers and the dead.

[PilgrimsProgress]

Originally Posted by AADAD

That was war. Winners losers and the dead.

To the brainwashed younger generations, everybody gets a trophy and nobody should have guns

[AADAD]

Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress

To the brainwashed younger generations, everybody gets a trophy and nobody should have guns

They have not a clue about war. In fact none of us really do except those who lived through it. We should be so grateful. We may have passed in 70 years to a time where that hatred does not exist and spars with our conscience when we find we are limited by our predjudices or viewpoints. One can hope so.

[MechAndy]

My mom lived through WW11 in Germany as a kid and later became an engineer.
My brother and I were allowed to have guns and ammo in our rooms during grammar school.
One of our jobs as kids was to kill birds in our orchard and shoot any rats we see.

Most kids today are soft.

[uniquetraveler]

Originally Posted by AADAD

My parents lived on Mt. Tantalus in Honolulu prior and during the war. During breakfast on December 7th they heard the Japanese planes bearing down. Mere hundreds of feet above their heads hundreds of Japanese planes armed to the teeth came over the east side of the island and headed for Pearl Harbor.

The attack on Pearl was merciless, vicious and deadly. Thousands drowned, were blown apart or killed on the Air Force bases. There was no where to run or hide. For weeks the men in the neighborhood were in the dark eating what they could and foraging for the rest. At night they grabbed their guns and sat motionless drinking coffee waiting for the invasion which did not come. I don't imagine any of them got a change of clothing. They lost weight, were hard pressed to venture out anywhere and all were steel eyed and terrified.

Isolated,3000 miles from the mainland, no phones no radios, dead bodies floating in the harbor, thousands of them. Before you get all squishy about internment camps...do the math.

That was war. Winners losers and the dead.

I am not a history buff, but during WW II, there were other countries like Germany and Italy who were fighting against US and the allied forces as well. So along with the Japanese-Americans, the government put all the Americans of German and Italian descent in internment camps as well?

[pnwguy2]

History will repeat itself as it has for thousands of years. There will be another US involvement in war on this continent. I can't predict when, but it will happen, hopefully in none of our lifetimes.