Tuesday, January 31, 2012

ATIT Reheated (from five years ago): The internment of The Japanese families of Kent, Washington

By Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor

This is a photo of a shop owner in my hometown of Kent, Washington, in 1942.







The first wave of immigrants to the Kent, Washington area happened shortly before 1900. The immigrants were mostly European. There were, even as I was growing up, several Italian families still farming the valley. The 1900 census count shows 13 Japanese families in and around Kent.

The number of Japanese immigrants rose steeply over the next few years until 1907, when the US Government put the brakes on the number of Japanese allowed to immigrate. Eventually, in the 1920's, they banned Japanese immigrants.  Period.  The Anti-Alien Land Law in 1923 barred these immigrants from owning land, or ever becoming citizens. Those with a child born in America could put land in the child's name. Some of the Japanese worked for established farmers and some cleared land and began their own farms in Kent, Auburn, and the nearby villages O'Brien, Orillia, and Thomas (which were annexed to Kent before I was born). 

Many Japanese farmers had dairy farms until the price of milk cratered after WW I. A lot of those farmers jumped into vegetable and berry farming, and their truck farms were profitable. They sold produce in Seattle, at farm stands, and to the east coast.


In 1930 there were about 200 Japanese families farming in the White/Green River valley. In 1942 during WW II all Japanese people in the White/Green River Valley were ordered evacuated from this area and were detained at the War Relocation Camp at Tule Lake, California. They lost their businesses, farms and personal belongings. They lost everything in the war hysteria.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them jailed with Executive Order 9066, designating certain "military areas" as zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This shameful national act ordered the removal of all people of Japanese ancestry from the entire Pacific coast. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this law, saying it is permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity." I don't know if that decision still stands or not. Maybe this is the precedent we use for locking up various Muslims and people of middle-eastern extraction.

The forced removal encompassed about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans--3/5 of them U.S. citizens. They were sent to shoddily constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" in remote portions of the nation's interior. . .far away from where they might have, say, used a flashlight to guide a fleet of Japanese bombers toward the Boeing warplane plant.
My mother, Betty Brummet, remembers Japanese American kids being rounded up at Ballard High School one day. Some of the students lined up and booed.
The phrase "shikata ga nai" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") summarized the interned families' resignation to their helplessness. This was even noticed by the children, as mentioned in Farewell to Manzanar. The Japanese citizens tended not to make waves.  They even, incredibly, still believed in America.
Dust storm at an internment camp a/k/a relocation center

In our war hysteria, we didn't want any Japanese Americans near the west coast. They would form cells and assist soldiers and pilots from the motherland in attacking The Pacific Coast. The number of Germans and Italians placed in the camps is only a fraction of their total population compared with the Japanese, virtually all of whom were locked up.

After the war only about thirty families returned to the valley area. I remember the Miyoshis, Yamadas, Nakaharas, Koyamatsus, Hiranakas, and Okimotos. Some of them got back into farming (not on their old farms, which had been confiscated and sold). I worked on the Yamada's farm a couple of springs, cutting and boxing rhubarb, and I worked for a couple of weeks on Kart Funai's farm one summer, bunching radishes and scallions.

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed legislation awarding formal payments of $20,000 each to the surviving internees—60,000 in all. This same year, formal apologies were also issued by the government of Canada to Japanese Canadian survivors, who were each repaid the sum of $21,000 Canadian dollars. President Ronald Reagan even apologized on behalf of the United States. $21,000 would buy a fraction of the hundreds of acres of stolen land. Sure, it's better than the reparations paid to the families of slaves (zero, to date), but a pittance compared to losing everything you owned, and the farms you nurtured. If they held on until now, they'd all be rich.

Through the 1950's the Green River continued to flood the valley floor in late spring. This is what made the valley floor some of the richest soil in the world. . .but, alas, flooding prevented big business from locating there. In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers built the Howard Hansen Dam (an earthen dam, still protecting the valley from floods) to regulate the river waters. The danger of uncontrolled flooding ended. The flat, treeless land on the valley floor now was an attractive area for business. And build they did.
Boeing built an aerospace lab, and the floodgates were opened. Farming was over, and dwindled rapidly, although there are a few pockets left. One of my old high school mates has in fact, become a wealthy vegetable farmer. Of the Japanese kids I knew in school, virtually none remained in Kent after high school. Of course, neither did I nor most of my friends, although some of our families still live there.

Sources:
Two previous articles on All This Is That
The History of Kent, Washington: http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/vtours/kent/
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Monday, January 30, 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Some images from a visit to Santa Monica/Venice

by Jack Brummet, California editor

The ever-present L.A. Choppers


The clown in a tutu on the CVS phramacy on Main St. Santa Monica

On the Venice beach walk--you want a tattoo, or a medical marijuana card (we do both)

The Santa Monica pier (this place totally blows)

sunset on the beach

freak show on the Venice walk

walkers in Venice

a sand sculptor at work

a great monster sculpture I ran into in Venice
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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Hagop Sandaldjian's microminiature sculptures at the Jurassic Museum

By Jack Brummet, Arts Editor

Hagop Sandaldjian was a musician and music theorist who later in life, became an artist, creating "microminiatures"-- tiny sculptures resting on the eye of a needle.  The sculptures took a long time to create, and a sneeze, or even a slight movement could destroy the work in an instant.  The Jurassic Museum in Culver City has a great exhibit of his work (among their many other great exhibits). I shot these images of his work through magnifying glass viewers at the museum using an iPhone (and with a photography permit where I promised I wouldn't sell the images to you. 

The challenge he created for himself was that each sculpture had to be small enough to fit through the eye of a needle!

You can read more about Sandaldjian here, on the Museum's website. 












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Friday, January 27, 2012

The CVS Clown in Santa Monica (but it might technically be in Venice)

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor


This demented looking, Emmet Kelly-style clown in a tutu dominates the facade of a CVS drugstore on Main Street.  What next...chupacabras on the top of every WalMart?

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Faces No. 262 - faces on the beach today in Venice, Calif.

By Jack Brummet (in Santa Monica)

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A Ballard Shaggy Dog Story

By Jack Brummet, Ballard and Nordic Heritage Editor




As you may or may not know, the now trendy hipster neighborhood of Ballard in Seattle was, and to some extent still is, a Norwegian-Swedish-Danish stronghold.  Stan Boreson and others have often told "Scandahoovian" stories and jokes.  This is one:

Ole is the Pastor of the local Norwegian Lutheran Church and Pastor Sven is the minister of the Swedish Covenant Church across the road.

One day they are seen pounding a sign into the ground, which said:


     DA END ISS NEAR!
   TURN YERSELF AROUNT NOW
   BAFOR IT ISS TOO LATE!

As a car speeds past them, the driver leans out his window and yells, “Leave people alone, you Skandihoovian religious nuts!”

From the curve they heard screeching tires and a big splash. Shakin’ his head, Rev. Ole says “Dat’s da terd one dis mornin’.”

“Yaa,” Pastor Sven agrees, then asks,Do ya tink maybe da sign should yust say, ‘Bridge Out?’”
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Bubba and The Pope - one more shaggy dog story

By Jack Brummet, Shaggy Dog Story editor

Bubba, an airline mechanic, was bragging to his boss one day, "you know I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."

Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, "OK, Bubba how about Tom Cruise?" "Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it." So Bubba and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door,and sure enough, Tom Cruise, shouts, "Bubba! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!"

Although impressed, Bubba's boss is still skeptical. After they leave Cruise's house, he tells Bubba that he thinks Bubba's knowing Cruise was just lucky."No, no, just name anyone else," Bubba says. "President Bush", his boss quickly retorts. "Yep", Bubba says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington" and off they go.

At the White House, Bush spots Bubba on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, "Bubba, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee first and catch up. "Well, the boss is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he expresses his doubts to Bubba, who again implores him to name anyone else. "The new Pope", his boss replies. "Sure!" says Bubba. I've known the Pope a long time" So off they fly to Rome.

Bubba and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Bubba says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope." and he disappears into the crowd headed toward St. Peter's. Sure enough, half an hour later Bubba emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Bubba returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.

Working his way to his boss's side, Bubba asks him, "What happened?"

His boss looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the Japanese tourist next to me asked, "Who's that on the balcony with Bubba?"
---o0o---

Monday, January 23, 2012

Jesus and Saint Peter Golfing



Jesus and Saint Peter are golfing. St. Peter steps up to the tee on a par three and hits one long and straight. It reaches the green.

Jesus is up next. He slices it. It heads over the fence into traffic on an adjacent street. Bounces off a truck, onto the roof of a nearby shack and into the rain gutter, down the drain spout and onto a lilly pad at the edge of a lake. A frog jumps up and snatches the ball in his mouth. An eagle swoops down, grabs the frog. As the eagle flies over the green, the frog croaks and drops the ball. It’s in the hole.

Saint Peter looks at Jesus, exasperated. “Are you gonna play golf?” he asks “Or are you just gonna f*** around?
---o0o---

Painting: The closer - "I've got a deal for you."

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge
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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Drawing: The contestants Paul, Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich

By Jack Brummet
[hand drawn on india ink scratchboard; digitized and captioned]


click to enlarge
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Newt's South Carolina win::::::::::The Republican ship is taking on water

By Jack Brummet, Paranormal, Art, Poetry, and Persiflage Editor (filling in for National Affairs Editor Pablo Fanque, on vacation in Belize)


I very much enjoyed Ex-Speaker Newt's win in South Carolina.  Why?  Because it was nice to see a cannonball blown through Mittens's aura of inevitability.  It's also nice to see the GOP in disarray/upheaval.  We have a different winner in each of the contests so far.  I don't know what the real pundits are saying, but I think this also bodes well for Ron Paul. 

The Mittens juggernaut has been slowed down--the ox is mired in the mud.  Do I want to see Newt as President?  No.  But as for the GOP itself, I enjoy the confusion and chaos.  Neither the establishment/money elite, or the Tea Party faction, or the fundamentalist wing seem able to right the Republican ship...and they're taking on water, fast. 

Why do I enjoy this SO much?  As Alfred Pennyworth said in another context "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
---o0o---

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Painting: DNA Transit

by Jack Brummet

[3'x4'; acrylic, pen, ink, and mixed media on raw canvas, 2005]

click to enlarge
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Friday, January 20, 2012

Our 2010 Predictions on GOP candidates (all things considered...not bad)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
and Jack Brummet, Arts Editor



In late 2010, we guessed who would be running for President from the Republican (and Tea) Party in 2012.  Of our candidates, three are still in the race.  Many of our picks didn't even get off the ground; we missed Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann; Sarah Palin performed a protracted will she?/won't she skit; and several of our picks faltered before the Iowa caucuses.  On the whole, we did a lot better job of guessing than we did in the 2008 contest.

Who is the next candidate to bail?  We are guessing Rick Santorum.  The South Carolina contest is extremely volatile.  Newt has incredibly, surged ahead in the last few days, and in some polls is besting Romney.  But then he was hit with some new dirt from his first wife.  And he even made some hay with that in the most recent debate. 

Despite everything he has said and done, we somehow prefer Newt to Rick Santorum.  We think he will nudge Santorum out in SC.  Ron Paul will remain stable, but will stay in the contest because he has rabid fans that keeping pouring money into the campaign. 

It looks like Florida may be where the rubber meets the road.  Let's see what happens in South Carolina this weekend. . .
---o0o---

Thursday, January 19, 2012

ATIT Reheated--> Poem: Kirkland Snow Day



Snow Day in Kirkland
By Jack Brummet

In silhouette
Against blue bisque skies,
Crows bounce

On the snow-humped branches,
Shaking snow to the ground.
They survey the valley

For prey
In dark relief
On the powder-white fields.
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Seattle Snow and Icestorm 2012

 Jack, journeying out on foot for shotgun shells, beans, bacon, Sterno, and whiskey: 1/20/2012.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Ballard News Tribune goes after The Onion

By Jack Brummet, Ballard Editor

My daughter pointed out last night that in their latest issue (and often in the past), it looks like The Ballard News Tribune is taking on The Onion.  This issue is chockablock with examples, starting with the wack lead story. . .

click to enlarge
---o0o---

Poem: Lost At Sea

by Jack Brummet


The rings of the splash
Send dopplers
Into the void,
Widening and disappearing
In the cold and lonely sea.
---o0o--

Poem: The Vault



by Jack Brummet

You spend decades slowly
Building a vault with rebar walls
And titanium lining around your heart,
But your loved ones are safecrackers.
---o0o---