SAN FRANCISCO — A talk entitled “Detention, Denialism, and Activism Now” will be given on Sunday, Aug. 11, from 2 to 4 p.m. at 100 Montgomery St. in the Presidio of San Francisco at the “Then They Came for Me” exhibit.
In 1942, the media and government called Japanese, Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans “slant-eye spies”; thousands were designated as “enemy aliens.” Today the White House is calling on four members of Congress who are women of color to “go back to where you came from” and calling neighborhoods where people of color live, like Baltimore, “rat-infested.”
Distinguished historians Gary Okihiro (Yale) and Alice Yang (UC Santa Cruz) will examine islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, the effects of the World War II camps and today’s grassroots efforts in the efforts to stop the repetition of history. They will be joined by Shannon Dickson (Safe Black Space), Zahara Billoo (Council on American-Islamic Relations), Rev. Ronald Kobata (Buddhist Church of San Francisco), and Satsuki Ina (Tsuru for Solidarity).
Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American activist project, was the catalyst for a grassroots victory in Oklahoma, halting plans to jail migrant children there.
For more information on the event, contact Nancy Ukai at (510) 432-9864.
For more information on the exhibit, which runs until Sept. 1, visit https://thentheycame.org.