Although anti-Japanese sentiments have subsided today, problems of racism persist against Asians. Recently in Seattle, a young Chinese doctor was walking home in the late evening with friends when a stranger called him racist names. The doctor protested saying that this should never happen here. The name caller slammed the doctor to the concrete crushing his skull, which resulted in several surgeries and months of long and painful therapy. My son told me about a similar incident that happened to him. He ignored the name caller and simply crossed the street unmolested.

A second incident occurred when I was traveling with my son, who was then twenty-five. Almost at the gate, we were about to board an airplane. I wore trendy eyeglass frames and a Versace raincoat. In addition, we were flying first class. But no matter how I dressed, we fit some government profile. The airport security person pulled me aside and physically searched me with a pat down. He put his hands on me in silence and felt me like a bag of potatoes. Not only did I get the full treatment, but my son was pulled aside too. A different guard searched his carry-on and made him open his laptop. Again the process was conducted slowly and methodically, with the agent operating in a stern, mechanical and superior manner.

No matter what, I knew I would board that plane. To me this was really just a show by security for all the other passengers to demonstrate how safe they were. It was just as Minidoka had protected America. Even though I was angry, I knew my place, which was to be pulled aside, and made into an example. I thought if I were a real terrorist, these security people would already be dead. But those thoughts fled quickly. I stopped and watched my son being searched. I hoped Matthew would not show anger and that he would not do anything foolish like my father. He handled himself well, and I was proud. My son learned the Minidoka lessons I had taught and modeled.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ I tolerate the indignity quietly not because I believe I am a lesser human being, but because I have a more important goal…

Discrimination is a reality in America. How you react is the important thing. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I tolerate the indignity quietly not because I believe I am a lesser human being, but because I have a more important goal. I will turn the other cheek because I want to move ahead to better things. Yet there is a cost.

Being part of a minority, I have learned to manage my emotions regarding what America did over sixty years ago to the Japanese. My anger is not a child’s mad hatter chaos, instead it is steel: forged in fire, folded a hundred times and tempered over and over. It is a samurai sword etched with ornamental scrolling lines above silver blood grooves and a razor sharp edge. Over time, I taught myself how to wield this symbolic sword so that innocents are not slashed and no harm comes to me. It represents the energy of the goddess of righteous indignation, and is only unsheathed to inspire my artistic voice. It is the engine that pulls forth the memories of pain and prejudice, transforming them into ink on paper. Keeping the sword sheathed and using it wisely protects me from the corrosive effects of anger. It helps ensure that its energy is used to enlighten and not destroy.

Calvin Tompkins’ memoir, Living Well Is the Best Revenge, has been an inspiration and comfort on my journey. Its teachings move me towards the positive and decouples anger from vengeance. Living well is my message to my son, Matthew. This of course has little to do with material things, but a state of mind. I am proud that he has learned it, and hope he never forgets. Good living is the ironic legacy of Minidoka’s pain. I carry this legacy as a former prisoner who was once an island now transformed into a peninsula. I have learned to live as a minority and manage my anger. Instead of coming to accept the injustice, however, I have come to accept my anger as appropriate. Minidoka, the nine other camps, and other FBI camps left a long and wide wake that far exceeded the event.

If we who have been betrayed do not speak up, then there are no victims, and no crime has been committed… It is not time to forget as some have suggested. Instead it is time to disrupt the silence.

Poetry helps me turn anger into art. Before all the camp survivors are gone, it is my chosen mission to tell the story of the Japanese during the War, a story that must end with us. Minidoka is my curse, and ironically it is my gift to pass on to Americans, reminding them never to let it happen again. “Nidoto nai yoni,” or in English, “Let it not happen again.” But my most important mission, however, is to give my son tools to protect himself from the racist ghosts of Minidoka alive today.

As for my parents, for all their faults and shortcomings, I can love and forgive them for the hard times we endured and survived. Living well is a lesson my father never mastered even though he tried. Mentally, he remained isolated in anger without a positive way to express it. He lived in a psychological desert of his own making, choosing to be another casualty of war and imprisonment.

Anger and resilience are at the core of my writings. America imprisoned 120,000 people, about two thirds of whom were American citizens, and used us. Able-bodied men from the camps were drafted to fight for a country that had imprisoned them, Japanese labor saved the Idaho sugar beet crop, and it was the Japanese who cultivated the deserts and brought the lands to life. Sections of the fertile Minidoka camp lands that the Japanese reclaimed were awarded to returning white soldiers after the War through a lottery. Ironically, Japanese-American vets were not permitted to participate. As a result, most of Minidoka effectively disappeared almost as if it had never existed. The final insult is that the two Supreme Court decisions, which upheld the injustices, are still on the books today.

If we who have been betrayed do not speak up, then there are no victims, and no crime has been committed. Without the stories, the camp internees become faceless statistics like highway death toll numbers. Even though it is socially unacceptable, I remain in anger and will not reach acceptance regarding the internment. It is imperative that I speak my mind to witness the injustice since there is no forgiveness for the unforgivable. It is not time to forget as some have suggested. Instead it is time to disrupt the silence.