The following is a guest post by journalist Howard Fields on his new book First Taken, Last Released: Overlooked WWII Internment:
Donald Trump's calls for interning Muslims and the upcoming 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that prompted the time when America did intern an entire class of people make
First Taken, Last Released: Overlooked WWII Internment a timely book.
The book follows one of the first 160 men taken from churches, temples or homes in Honolulu before the smoke cleared over Pearl Harbor. He and about 1,700 others were taken in Hawaii during the next several weeks, long before the more than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were taken on the West Coast beginning in February, 1942.
Much has been written of those 120,000, mostly families, but there is little about the first men taken and held in men-only camps behind barbed-wire for the duration of the war. Some, as with the subject of
First Taken, were not released until three months after formal surrender by Japan in September, 1945.
These men were moved from camp to camp, in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Louisiana, Montana and then New Mexico with little, if any, contact with families or friends. The man we follow, a Buddhist minister, had sent his family to Japan before the war to be educated there and return. Before they could return, they were trapped there when the war broke out. One son survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, another endured two years in a slave labor camp in Siberia, kept on the edge of starvation.
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| Tommy, and wife Sally |
First Taken also is important for its new perspective on the lead-up to the Japan attack on Pearl Harbor. It relies on its own translations of recently released transcripts of the meetings of Japan's leadership, including Emperor Hirohito, in which they discussed whether to attack. It shows the amazing and extreme dysfunction of Japan's leadership at the time. To a man, they knew they could not survive a war with the United States, and none wanted to launch the Pearl Harbor attack, but not one was willing to be the first to say, "No," so it happened.
Beyond that, the internment that began immediately after the bombing, was the result of a xenophobia and racism that still dominates American culture as well as in Europe. That and other parallels with today's political leadership should send chills up the spines of Americans and the rest of the world as a president elect calls for a return to those days of internment and belligerence.
It could happen all over again, not only in the United States, but Europe as well. Philosopher George Santayana wrote 100 years ago, "Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it." Let
First Taken and books like it serve as reminders of a past we wish not to repeat.
2016. What a year. Ready to move on.
On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you to read other perspectives, and for me to give props to the many voices leading the way...
The following devotion comes from Claire Richtmyer, United Methodist Women Coordinator for Spiritual Growth, Capitol South District, West Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Throughout scripture, God is the defender and protector of the poor, the alien, the debtor, the widow, and the orphan. Justice is part of God's purpose for redemption. Justice is also about restoring our broken relationship with God to what he intends for us. Our role in God's purposes for all his creatures and for the world he has made.
The God of the Bible is a God who puts the world to rights. We are called to do the same.
The following is a guest post by journalist Howard Fields on his new book First Taken, Last Released: Overlooked WWII Internment:
In Latin America, and especially in Colombia, it is a tradition to celebrate religious events with your closest family members including, parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. On December 7th the entire family begins helping with the preparations for this holiday, they cook special treats like natilla (corn pudding), buñuelos (deep-fry cheese balls) and hojuelas (a deep-fry pastry with sugar). When the time comes, candlesticks are organized in the front of each house either with long rows covering the entire house or making different patterns like flowers or hearts. Some candles are stood on the floor and others are placed in a little cardboard box (Farolitos) decor in the outside, or trimmed on religious shapes. The Farolitos are usually hung on a rope. 
