It CAN happen here, because it HAS happened here

Speaking engagements in Hudson Falls and Chapman Museum are next

By Ken Tingley

There is a nervousness in the air. At least, I feel it.

It is a threat unlike anything I have ever experienced during my 66 years. After hosting an event this fall drawing attention to recent efforts to ban books in the United States, I read Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about a futuristic dystopian society that burns books.

This past week, a reader sent me Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It could happen here, chronicling an autocratic president who ushers in a dictatorial regime of “suppression, terror and totalitarianism all draped in red, white and blue bunting.”  The president’s Gestapo is called the “Minute Men.”

It rang chillingly similar to the promises Donald Trump is making today on the campaign trail.

But those stories are fiction.

Any similarities with the events of today are nothing more than conjecture, some would say.

But there is precedent in our history. There is reason to fear it could happen.

Yoshio Nakamura remembered first hearing the rumblings in the days after Pearl Harbor at his high school in Los Angeles, but his history teacher assured him it would not.

“You are an American, and the Constitution will protect you,” his teacher said.

The Constitution did not protect him or his family.

The Nakamura family was forcibly removed from their home and sent to the Tulare Assembly Center.

They lived in a horse stable.

“American people don’t understand freedom,” is what George Morihiro said long after the war ended, “Until the day you lose it, you’ll never understand the word freedom. When you are thrown from a free life into a camp without a trial by your government, they have taken your freedom away from you… And you fight the rest of your life trying to get it back.”

All it took was a stroke of the pen from President Franklin Roosevelt.

Executive Order 9066.

In May of 1942, fliers were posted all over the the West Coast instructing Japanese Americans to report for relocation.

The Army uprooted 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry - two-thirds of which were citizens - forcing them to abandon their homes, businesses and personal possessions for makeshift “assembly centers” where they were housed in remote locations behind barbed wire fences while guards patrolled and stood watch atop towers.

In 1943, President Roosevelt activated the 442nd Regimental Combat Team made up entirely of Japanese American citizens. Many young men escaped the camps by volunteering to fight. In May 1944, the regiment deployed in Italy.

That October, the 442nd was ordered into action to rescue what became known as “The Lost Battalion” behind enemy lines. Over five days of combat, the 442nd broke through German lines and rescued 211 men but suffered over 800 casualties. One company went in with 185 men. Just eight came out unhurt.

The unit, known for its bravery, received over 8,000 Purple Hearts. Despite that, only one Japanese American was ever given the Medal of Honor during the war.

On June 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton attempted to right the that wrong by upgrading 20 recipients of the Distinguish Service Cross with the Medal of Honor. In a ceremony at the White House, six living Japanese American soldiers were honored while 14 posthumous medals were presented to family members.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter created a commission on the relocation camps to consider restitution. After reviewing the circumstances of Executive Order 9066, the commission determined that “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” prompted the order, not military necessity. The commission recommended a formal apology from Congress and financial compensation in the amount of $20,000 to each surviving member who had been incarcerated 35 years earlier. More than 80,000 Japanese Americans were awarded restitution.

Yoshio Nakamura, whose teacher told him not to worry, went to war in the spring of 1944 with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. When he returned home, he used the GI Bill to pursue a career in education. Despite continued discrimination, he became a successful and high school teacher and eventually Vice President of Rio Honda College.

George Morihiro, who lamented Americans failure to appreciate their freedoms, also joined the 442nd during World War II. He received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in combat in France.

Tuesday talk

Hope you can join me Tuesday morning at The Senior Center of Kingsbury and Fort Edward for a chat about newspapers, journalism and my new book “The Last American Editor, Vol. 2.” Lots of great stories about the people and events that shaped our region.

I’ll be speaking at 11 a.m. at the Senior Center on Oak Street in Hudson Falls.

I will also be speaking at the Chapman Museum in Glens Falls on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 7 p.m.

Hope you can make it to one of these events.

The Chapman event is free, but they encourage registration.