Earlier this month, I reported about a harsh letter aimed at Dan Saltzman after Portland City Council’s Joint Terrorism Task Force vote. It was sent by the son of a Japanese internee who spoke at the meeting, and it seized on comments by Saltzman that some saw as dismissing the concentration camp experience that Japanese Americans endured during World War II.
This week, I got a copy of the apology letter (PDF) that Saltzman sent back to the man who spoke at council, Henry Sakamoto. The letter, as you can read in the excerpt below, gets pretty personal in how the apology is framed.
Saltzman’s office told me before sharing the letter that it believed the gesture had eased tensions over Saltzman’s comment. That may not be quite the case.
Some prominent figures in Portland’s Japanese-American community say they’d still like a public apology, given the public forum where Saltzman’s comments were uttered—not just a private letter.
“Although he sent this really sincere, heartfelt letter to Henry,” says Jeff Selby, co-president of the Portland Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, noting that a letter also sent from his group was unanswered, “he didn’t address the community’s concern. We draw attention to it because comments like that don’t show a lot of respect for the history of the Japanese community.”
Says Scott Sakamoto: “I don’t want to discount that letter. It’s a very important step. But take one more step and say ‘I’m sorry’ to the community. That’s going to go a long way.
“Culturally, they’re not going to make waves. But they’ll foster that feeling of disrespect.”
While I appreciate the BS Japanese Americans went through with the ‘relocation’ -and it was alot- I’m sad to say that I think these (few?) are being hyper-sensitive.
I’ve studied up on and been to Manzanar and Tule Lake (the location anyway, as nothing remains). The irony of sending their sons to war with the 442nd while their sisters and parents made camoflauge in these camps. No German or Italian Americans were placed in camps on the east coast -where many acts of sabotage happened, while none happened on the west coast. Selling almost everything you own for pennies on the dollar -their homes too- because folks knew they could take advantage of them leaving soon, etc etc etc.
And the way the Japanese-Americans dealt with this injustice is remarkable…
Even so, I think Saltzmans position on the JTTF was correct and respectfully disagree with the few Japanese Americans who found his words hurtful.
National security at the expense of civil liberties is unacceptable to the Japanese American community and should be intolerable to you as well.
By the way, About 1,600 Italian citizens were rounded up and incarcerated in the U.S. during WWII, and about 10,000 Italian-Americans were forced to move from their homes in California coastal communities to inland homes. The FBI also oversaw an operation to round up Germans that they deemed to be subversive, from fifteen Latin American countries to the U.S. for detention during the war.
Are we not the only fairly large metro area in the US to not be a part of the JTTF?
I don’t see the argument still as an “either Civil Liberties or National Security”. I think it is far too easy to frame the debate that way. Brandon Mayfield or 9/11.
I would think with the assasination of Bin Laden and the increased threats to the US we have heard that if I was a terrorist I would be looking at somewhere like PDX.
But I would hope we wouldn’t have to live our lives in fear.
Yes, the FBI has done horrible things. So have the Police.
But it was FDR, still considered one of our finest Presidents, who authorized and signed Exectutive Order 9066, which sent the Japanese Americans to ‘relocation’ camps.