They Got on With Living After WWII’s Injustices

As a young married woman, I lived in Pasadena during the ‘60s and knew many Japanese families who had been interned at Manzanar during World War II (“A Family Interrupted,” by Matt Bai, Nov. 27). They never discussed this period of their lives. I always believed that they regarded it as a glitch that had happened, and that when they returned to their lives, they were determined to get on with living, not dwell on themselves as victims.

Their goals seemed simple to me. They would make sure that their children had superior educations, and they accomplished this by being hard-working gardeners, nurserymen, small-business owners and excellent parents. If that could only be said of all victims of society’s injustices.

Pat Weaver

Laguna Beach

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Bai’s article was marred by a gratuitous and arguably anti-Semitic aside--”Jews had elevated suffering to a kind of performance art”--which you chose to repeat on the magazine’s table of contents page. Why wasn’t it edited out? It served no purpose other than to ruin the article for many readers.

Kennedy Gammage

San Diego

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The quiet dignity with which Bai’s in-laws accepted the terrible injustice imposed upon them by the U.S. is testament to the beauty and spirit of Japanese Americans. But we must never forget the crimes our government committed against these gentle citizens.

Mary Hughes-Thompson

Beverly Hills

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I’d like to make a contribution for readers who, like Bai, might feel that there is “no great Japanese American novelist to chronicle their persecution.” There are, in fact, several novels that address the Japanese American experience during World War II and its aftermath.

In addition to Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston’s well-known “Farewell to Manzanar,” I highly recommend John Okada’s “No-No Boy” and Joy Kogawa’s “Obasan.” Other books that obliquely mention the Japanese American experience include Milton Murayama’s “All I Asking for Is My Body,” Kim Ronyoung’s “Clay Walls” and Chester Himes’ “If He Hollers Let Him Go.”

Hellen Lee-Keller

La Jolla

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At the age of 8, I was interned at the Santa Anita racetrack and later in Colorado. How appropriate that there was an article in the same Nov. 27 magazine on Irene Hirano, president of the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo (“Democracy Downtown,” by Victoria Namkung, Metropolis).

Redress for Japanese Americans came about following the successes of the civil rights movement and because of the support of racial and ethnic groups. As Americans, we all benefit by working together. May this vital lesson be remembered.

Phil Shigekuni

Civil Rights Chair

San Fernando

Valley Chapter

Japanese American

Citizens League