Every school has a small number of students who are chronically absent from class. When a school sets up a meeting between a county truancy officer and the parents of a truant student, those parents move one giant step closer to being summoned before a judge in a court of law. Schools, however, must pay for every visit by a truancy officer, and so actual appointments are rare. Today was one of those rare days.
Unfortunately, the parent chose not to show up for the meeting. This did, however, give me a chance to chat with the friendly officer assigned to our school, a graying, fourth generation Japanese-American. As we talked about our shared heritage, he recounted his family's experience of suffering internment in a U.S. relocation camp during World War II. What he could retell, however, was very limited--his mother refused to ever talk about the subject. This was true even up to and beyond 1988, the year they received a reparations check following a landmark apology from the government of the United States.
The check, he told me, sat on their kitchen table for over six months unopened. Such was the pain and the pride of this elderly American woman who had been wronged. His mother simply refused to have anything to do with it. Finally, his family came to an agreement whereby the amount of the reparations check would be used, but only as a college fund for future grandchildren.
No one will likely ever know the suffering and heroism of our unassuming truancy officer's mother. It's an honor to simply mention what little I can of her in my writing here.
To have your own government view you as a wartime enemy. To make no distinction between foreign national and U.S. citizen. To confiscate your possessions and force you to live in a camp hundreds if not thousands of miles from your home.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the depth of the indignities. I remember the shock and disbelief I felt when I learned the U.S. government had done this and that it was FDR, a man revered in our house, who signed the Executive Order. And, on top of it, to realize there had been a Portland Assembly Center in what used to be known as the Pacific International Livestock Center.
I honor your honoring of this proud woman. Shame on us.