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IJap- \niericans DefendedWith eloquent simplicity the deserving case of Japanese-Americans is pleaded by Richard L. Neuberger, writing in a recent issue of The Saturday Review of Literature. Unjustified vindictiveness toward this group,I j known as Nisei, was widespread during thewar years; particularly on the West Coastwhere 112,353 men, women and children ofJapanese ancestry resided, out of a total of 126,947 in the United States at the time Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor.Mr. Neuberger begins with a touching human interest appeal, as he pleads the case of the Nisei. He described a heavy train , plunging down the gorge of the Columbia River, while Staff Sergeant Taro Asai of the 37th Army Infantry Division looked out the coach window on the familiar scene. Coming home after 44 months in the Southwest Pacific, the soldier wondered how’ he would be received when he reached Hood River.KL*SKdHis parents were not yet out of the relocation camp a thousand miles from the Pacific seaboard and his three brothers were5.ndstill in the Army. He knew, too, that the Hood River Post of the American Legion had taken the names of the four Asai boys off j the servicemen's honor roll on the Sandstone I County Courthouse. The Saturday Review of Literature writer draws a graphic picture ofris* ^~Tthe scene when Taro picks up his duffle bagand alights at the station;“The cab took Taro past the courthouse. He peered at the white plaques on the side of the building. Some were freshly painted and not stained by weather. Four caught his glance—Gene Asai, Masami Asai, Masaaki Asai, Taro Asai. The names were back, the names that had been torn down while his division was fighting its w*ay across the long island battleground—New Guinea, the Solomons, the Philippines.’*rme,leea1-Proceeding in the cab, Taro passes the fir-planked Methodist Church where he hoped '* j he could see the Rev. Mr. Burgoyne’s tall figure in the arched doorway. The minister lCt had written him at his A. P. O. address thatn.ctm the house of God in Hood River men were ,m judged by their deeds and not by their color,ce Then Taro began to wonder about the 40acres of fruit trees that his father Sagoro had planted long ago as an Immigrant from Ja-pan.! 1 I But this vignette prefaces a chronicle ofweevents that are a disgrace to the perpetrators who call themselves Americans. For ex-ss j ample, Frank Hachiya, one of the Nisei whose ^n names had not been deemed worthy of the era Hood River honor roll, was awarded the Sil-hi# ver Star posthumously for gallantry in ac-ln® tion on Leyte Island. Prejudice against the | »**- Nisei, w’hich was indefensible at the out-3n» 1 set, still smoulders in some areas of the 9ii» j United States but the brilliant defense of thethisJapanese-Americans by Richard L. Neu-berger will serve to answer the charges of this j the bigots to the satisfaction of any thinkingAmerican who reads it.
Newspaper Details
Anniston Star
Anniston, Alabama, US
Fri, Sep 27, 1946
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 30 Sep 2018
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