As one of the Japanese American conservatives included in the Pacific Citizen article “The Being Red While JA Blues” (see Oct. 18-31, 2024, Pacific Citizen), I feel the responsibility to express my disappointment in the message from JACL Executive Director David Inoue in the Nov. 15-Dec. 19, 2024, issue.
Inoue posits that everyone who voted for Harris-Walz are “us,” and anyone who voted for Trump-Vance are “them.” I am astounded that someone who runs a national civil rights organization would offer such a polarizing position. He stated that “we need to make the effort to genuinely get to know those who are voting in incredibly divergent ways from us.”
“Incredibly divergent from us”? I believe that is false. From what I see, the Republican Party is now the “big tent” party that welcomes any and all who are interested in the principles that the party represents.
The difference is that Democrats see Republicans as people to malign and avoid, including at family events. Even the Holiday Campaign fundraising letter opened with the threat that President Trump might invoke the Enemy Aliens Act and tied it to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, which was a violation of the civil rights of Americans, not aliens. Would there be wholesale rounding up of people here illegally, based solely on their country of birth? It seems that this may be the only way to offset the problems caused by illegal access to our country by unvetted individuals, especially known criminals, regardless of their country of origin.
I have been a member of the JACL since the ’70s and was even a “Jr. JACLer” before that. I was in the second “Leadership” group to travel to Washington, D.C., in 1986 and met all the “Big Four”: Inouye, Matsunaga, Mineta and Matsui.
I met with my congressman to get his support for the redress bill. I’ve been a board member for more than 40 years of what started out as the JACL health insurance plan, and we established the Japanese American Community Fund that has distributed dozens of grants to projects and organizations benefitting our community — and that includes JACL.
I’ve emceed many JACL events, both district and national. As a former trainer for Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP) for many years, I conducted leadership training sessions and facilitated strategic planning sessions for dozens of local community organizations. A former national JACL president calls me “sensei” for leading the weeklong LEAP training that influenced him to change his career path to include leadership roles in public affairs and advocacy, where he has been highly successful.
How dare you, David Inoue, attempt to exclude me as part of “us”?
The JACL was inclusive of all people in the past, with the understanding that we were united in the cause of civil rights and making “Better Americans in a Greater America.”
I was at the 2000 convention in Monterey where Nisei veterans walked out after we approved the apology to Nisei Resisters of Conscience of World War II. It’s my opinion that it was the start of the turning of the JACL toward the left and where we left the conservative members of JACL behind. I remain a member of my chapter in Riverside because I want to see the local chapters succeed.
I fear that if we continue in this direction, we will be facilitating the demise of our organization. The country has spoken and has awakened from the “woke” nightmare that has plagued our nation. It’s up to the JACL and its leadership to decide which path to take.
Doug Urata is a member of the Riverside JACL. Click here to read other Reflections columns.
