The College held a community dinner to address forgotten histories of minority victimization on Thursday, which marked the 64th anniversary of the government order for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
History Professors Vernon Takeshita and Craig Wilder spoke at the event entitled "Lost Histories: Reclaiming the Past, Empowering the Future," and encouraged attendants to connect through shared history and to communicate through open dialogues.
According to Wilder, minority groups must recognize and fulfill their moral obligations to their predecessors and their contemporary obligations to each other in order to further cultural awareness and understanding.
Wilder highlighted the need for members of the campus community to firmly commit to a permanent, coherent Asian American Studies program.
Takeshita urged students to end the periods of "deafening silence" that have followed racially-motivated atrocities.
"All too often these are the types of histories that are left out of the history books," Takeshita said. "If you know the stories, you step in and share the history."
The event was held in honor of Black History Month and Japanese-American Internment Day of Remembrance. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., sponsored the 2003 bill that established Feb. 19 as a day of remembrance in honor of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans forced into concentration camps during World War II.
According to Takeshita, it is particularly important to remember Japanese internment ,given the post-Sept. 11 rise in government security surveillance and in preventive action directed at Arab-Americans. Takeshita noted that U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., who currently chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, recently came out in support of Japanese-American internment.
"When America is threatened, it can turn to its most basic instincts, fear and hysteria," Takeshita said. Americans must go beyond their personal interests in order to prevent fear and hysteria from dominating American policy, Takeshita said.
The Asian American Studies Center at the University of California at Los Angeles recently established the first endowed academic chair devoted to the study of the Japanese-American internment and to the reparations paid to survivors.
