Japanese Americans on Okinawa call
'Pearl Harbor' analogy unjust, incorrect
By Chiyomi Sumida, Okinawa
bureau
The horrific scenes of hijacked airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon were repeatedly dubbed "the second Pearl Harbor."
But many Americans of Japanese descent see the comparison as unjust and incorrect.
"Except for the stealth, there was little else in common," said Timothy
Nakayama, 70, a retired Episcopal priest in Seattle who served as a priest at All Souls
Episcopal Church on Okinawa.
"Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 7, 1941, was a sneak Japanese military attack on a military
target," he said. "But the Sept. 11 attacks overwhelmingly targeted civilian
personnel."
Robert Kishaba, 71, who manages a library on Camp Courtney on Okinawa, echoed
Nakayama’s sentiment.
"It is a regrettable mistake," Kishaba said. "The Imperial military did
not attack Honolulu. Their target was not civilians or children.
"The [Sept. 11] terrorist attacks were not a military action. It was a
massacre."
For some, the comparison was a painful reminder of 60-year-old wounds. Nakayama was a
10-year-old in Canada when the Pearl Harbor bombing occurred. He and his family were sent
to a concentration camp, like tens of thousands of Canadian, American, Peruvian, Brazilian
and other people of Japanese descent.
"We were falsely identified as enemy aliens," Nakayama said.
Kishaba, a California-born second generation Japanese American, was on Okinawa when
World War II started. When the United States and Japan severed their diplomatic relations,
all transportation to the United States was cut off, and he was trapped on Okinawa while
his family in California was relocated to a concentration camp.
It was a close call for then 17-year-old Ralph Tsuha, who returned to Hawaii from a
visit to Okinawa just two months before the war started. By then, food and other
commodities were already scarce on Okinawa.
Tsuha was horrified by what Japan had done to his country. Although Tsuha and most
Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not sent to a concentration camp, racial discrimination
against them was prevalent.
"Being a Japanese American, I felt so small," said Tsuha, now a 77-year-old
retired Department of Defense civilian on Okinawa.
Meanwhile, anti-Japanese sentiment served as a part of the war campaign.
"The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was exploited in ... North America,"
Nakayama said. "Racism and hatred against people of Japanese ancestry were used for
the war effort among the general public."
Nakayama, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, is concerned about recent reports of hate
crimes against Middle Eastern people in the United States. The prime suspect in the
attacks is Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.
Nakayama urged people to learn and know more about Arabic people and Islam and to avoid
fear of the unknown.
"Don’t get me wrong. The terrorists must be punished no matter what. But
law-abiding people of the same ethnic background [as the terrorists] should not feel that
they are mistreated," Kishaba said.
He is optimistic prejudice won’t be prevalent.
"I know that America’s conscience will never allow the injustice to be
repeated again," he said.
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