Discuss

There were many Buddhists among the 120,000 U.S. citizens and legal immigrants of Japanese descent who were sent into detention camps by the U.S. government after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some attribute the lack of bitterness among the Issei (first generation) to their Buddhist understanding of the world. But neither spiritual belief nor Constitutional rights helped the Japanese Americans retain their homes, businesses, or freedom after FDR signed Executive Order 9066, the "national security" edict that sealed their fate in 1942. My mother, grandparents, aunt, and uncles were all sent into barbed-wire confinement at the Tule Lake War Relocation Authority "center" in northern California. Like thousands of others, they lost everything and had to start over with the $25 and a train ticket the government granted them when the camp gates closed. A few years ago I went on my first pilgrimage to Tule Lake and met deep-thinking Japanese Americans and Caucasian defenders of civil liberties. It was a searing, wrenching experience listening to the memories of the Nisei (second generation), now in their 80s, as they recounted threats to their health, personal safety, and above all, their dignity as innocent individuals. They were trapped in a terrible desert place by racism, greed, and fear. I commend the volunteers who organize the annual pilgrimages to Tule Lake, Manzanar, Heart Mountain, and other sites where our democracy faltered. May we as Americans never forget.

When I came to live in New York nearly 10 years ago, the city seemed as strange as any country – China, France, Japan – I had ever traveled to. I grew up on a farm in British Columbia, Canada, and could prune an apple tree and cook dinner on a wood stove, but none of that mattered here. I knew from experience, though, that the strangeness passes and the new place becomes home, at least temporarily. I’ve put down roots in New York now, and to my surprise, discovered family roots that had little meaning to me before. My mother was born Jewish in New York City, and my father lived in the Lower East Side while he was a graduate student at Columbia. I can’t imagine ignoring the art and the history that is so rich in this part of the country. But my British Columbia cabin is still home in a way that this city won’t ever be. My journey has taken me to New York, but I think some day I’ll circle back. Lara Netting Asia Society