The debate over who counts as ‘American’ is nothing newPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Audio, Autobiography, History, Media Archive, United States on 2017-05-06 00:31Z by Steven |
The debate over who counts as ‘American’ is nothing new
The Washington Post
2015-05-04
 (Illustration by Chris Kindred for The Washington Post)) |
Virginia Matsuoka was 10 years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
She was playing tag football with her older brothers when her mother came outside and told them what had happened.
“And I remember my father came up behind me there,” Matsuoka said. “He put his arm around me and he said, ‘This is so bad, Ginger. This is bad.’”
Matsuoka’s mother was American and white, but her father was Japanese. By April 1942, her family was torn apart. Her father was working in Colorado, spared a stint in the internment camps because he had helpful law enforcement connections. He taught martial arts to police officers there. Two of her brothers were serving in the U.S. Army. And Matsuoka and two of her other brothers were in the Tanforan Assembly Center, an internment camp built around a racetrack near San Francisco.
Despite being displaced and separated, Matsuoka and her family remained patriotic. She recalls asking her father what it was like for her: “He said, ‘You know, Ginger, this was my country. I came here, they gave me the opportunity to make a name for myself, and then the war came along so you do things that you’ve got to do.’”
Hear Matsuoka recall her experiences in Tanforan and talk about what it was like returning to school after being separated from her friends and family…
Listen to the podcast (00:15:59) here.