Baby Markets, Monuments, and the Japanese-American Internment

Many thanks to Dan and Al for inviting me to be a guest blogger here at the Faculty Lounge.  It is a privilege (and a bit intimidating) to enter the blogging world in this company.  That said, I am guessing that blogging, like most other endeavors, is best learned by emulating others.  And so, with a nod to some of the contributors to this blog, my first post will be about selling babies to finance Southern monuments to commemorate the internment of Japanese Americans.

Okay, I couldn’t quite fit one of Kim’s topics into this post, but I am serious about combining aspects of what Al and Eric often ask us to consider.  Both of them care about doing history well in the service of those we study and those we teach.  And both of them ask us to pay attention to places of meaning and the meaning of remembrance.

Eric’s scholarship (and the work of others to whom he has directed me) helps connect me to my past.  My grandparents, Lily and Taizo Inazu, were American citizens interned at Manzanar in 1942.  My father, Willie Inazu, was born there in 1943.  When my grandfather protested their incarceration, the family was sent to Tule Lake, where they remained until the camp closed in 1946. 

The camps left real scars.  My grandparents lost almost everything they owned, four years of freedom, and much of their dignity.  My grandfather, who had graduated from Berkeley in 1929 with a degree in mechanical engineering, struggled to make sense of the remnants of his life after the war.  He died twelve years after being released from Tule Lake, at the age of 51, widowing my grandmother with five children. 

My grandmother never remarried.  When she received her redress payment in 1990, she used part of the money to buy some new kitchen cabinets for her home in Palmyra, New Jersey, a home that she has since sold to help pay for the costs of her care in a retirement center.

Which brings me to some of Al’s work.  Al reminds us of the importance of place, and the value of making visual connections to place.  His posts on this blog have reminded me of a monument in Washington, D.C. that I’ve visited several times.

Just north of the Capital, the National Japanese American Memorial fills a triangular plot bordered by three downtown streets.  Although it was built only ten years ago, it looked a little forgotten when I last visited—my only company was some litter crowding the ground.  I didn’t imagine many congressmen or staffers glancing over at it on their way to debate the next round of laws affecting our civil liberties.  It is more than a bit sad to think that this monument, like so many others, may be destined to obscurity until some future Al Brophy blogs about it.

But it is there, and that matters.  My grandmother has seen it, a few years ago when she could still travel.  I don’t know if she saw litter on the ground during her visit.  I do know that the sense of place (with our nation’s Capital hovering in the background) and the sense of remembrance (aided by the physical presence of rocks, water, and the names of the camps etched on the memorial) meant more to her than some new kitchen cabinets.  And unlike the cabinets, which neither she nor I will ever see again, the memorial retains a kind of permanence that reminds us to remember.  

Comments

[Kim Krawiec]

No Baby Markets??? Well, great first post anyway.

[Eric Muller]

Nice post, John, and welcome aboard.

Not sure whether you're aware of the rather enormous controversy that swirled around the creation of that monument. It's interesting fodder for discussion. We should talk about it sometime.

[Alfred Brophy]

Very funny! Forget the baby selling and internment -- just focus on monuments.

[babyhawk]

We all perceive the same thing with different perceptions.