Perseverance Theatre’s ‘Hold These Truths’<\/a>]<\/p>\nConservative news outlets were quick to call reports like this \u201cfake news.\u201d They\u2019ve argued the program being discussed is similar to one implemented by President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But coupled with Trump\u2019s campaign statements, such as calling for broad-based surveillance of mosques in America, it\u2019s impossible not to recognize that the underlying objective is religious profiling and discrimination.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, go back to 2010 when the so-called ground zero mosque controversy erupted. Or to the actual New York City police surveillance of Muslims that included every mosque within 100 miles of the city. These are the discriminatory seeds which would make any kind of registry a threat to Muslims and all minorities who have had to fight for equal rights.<\/p>\n
This is part of the instructive value of \u201cHold These Truths.\u201d On more than a few occasions, Hirabayashi, played by actor Greg Watanabe, describes discrimination against Japanese-Americans with a familiarity that makes it clear it was a widely-accepted norm well before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The historical truth is that in some West Coast communities, they weren\u2019t allowed to live in certain neighborhoods and were barred from competing with white people for jobs. In fact, immigration from Japan had been halted entirely years before the World War II.<\/p>\n
While outright discrimination against Muslims isn\u2019t legal like it was during Hirabayashi\u2019s time, a similar level of resentment and mistrust exists. In such an atmosphere, any new policy or law that\u2019s crafted well enough to pass constitutional muster doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not intentionally violating the spirit of freedom and justice for all.<\/p>\n
It took more than 40 years for America to admit the internment program violated America\u2019s core principals. In the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed by President Ronald Reagan, our government finally acknowledged \u201cthe fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and internment\u201d of Japanese-Americans, apologized to them on behalf of the nation and provided restitution to those interned. The act was also intended to \u201cdiscourage the occurrence of similar injustices and violations of civil liberties in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lesson from near the end of \u201cHold These Truths\u201d is those violations weren\u2019t related to protecting Americans at home during a time of war. Almost 40 years later, Hirabayashi\u2019s convictions were overturned because influential evidence presented by the government during his Supreme Court hearings was known at the time to be false. The FBI had refuted every claimed incident of Japanese-American sabotage, and the military never expected a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.<\/p>\n
Why would a government that \u201cholds these truths to be self-evident\u201d prosecute such a travesty of justice? Because of \u201crace prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.\u201d That was the conclusion of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which investigated the interment program in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t think Trump\u2019s attempt to make America great again won\u2019t parallel that tragic past, consider last week\u2019s interview of Pete Hoekstra on NPR\u2019s Weekend Edition.<\/p>\n
A former Republican congressman from Michigan who served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Hoekstra is now an informal advisor to Trump\u2019s transition team. He claimed we need to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border because it\u2019s \u201cbecome an access point for terrorist groups to enter into the United States.\u201d When challenged to name one such incident, he couldn\u2019t. So he pivoted to a case involving the Canadian border.<\/p>\n
Hoekstra\u2019s argument, and his place close to Trump\u2019s advisors, are predictors of the same leadership failures that Hirabayashi fought 70 years ago. The laws and policy proposals they\u2019re tossing around aren\u2019t justified any more now as they were then. And unless a substantial number of Americans rigorously oppose them, this new administration will be free to sail ahead under a new wind of political correctness.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident,\u201d states America\u2019s Declaration of Independence. They are equality among men and the unalienable rights of \u201cLife, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\u201d Even though Jeanne Sakata\u2019s \u201cHold These Truths\u201d brings us a story of inequality and lost liberties from the past, it\u2019s simultaneously asking how the evolution of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":22626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22625"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}