PILGRIMAGE

Tonight I viewed a screening entitled PILGRIMAGE about the incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II around 1942. Director Tad Nakamura, a film graduate from UCLA, documented the pilgrimage to Manzanar in California. His intentions for his documentary are to provoke social change through the medium of film. The film is able to bring the tragic past to light, allowing Asian Americans to reclaim their history instead of being ashamed by it.
During WWII there were 11 internment camps, which incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans. Over two-thirds of the internments were American citizens. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Asians were marginalizes because of their racial identity; they were all thought to be linked to the ‘enemy’.
One of the people that Nakamura interviewed stated that the officers in the internment camps “terrorized you into being silent.” The interviewee made reference to the stereotype of quiet, Asian Americans. Never before had I realized that it is possible that the ‘dominant’ Americans (those in power during the time) created, formed, and implemented racial stereotypes in order to control other ethnic populations. To see the possible historic origination of supposed stereotypes is quite shocking and interesting.
Today, the pilgrimage to Manzanar has gathered together a community of different cultures and ethnicities to claim and celebrate their histories. It is a way to honor one’s community instead of running from the past. By doing so, they are only growing stronger as people.
After the attacks of 9/11, Muslims were identified and marginalized, as were the Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII; the United States once again organized against the supposed enemy. Muslim people were beginning to lose their rights, even basic human rights, just because of their skin color and ethnicity. Nakamura showed how the Asian American community banded together to prevent the past from happening to Muslims and Muslim Americans.
Having been in Connecticut during the attacks of 9/11, Muslims in the New York area and across the entire United States were marginalized no doubt. The crackdown at airports demonstrates how quickly the United States is willing to turn on the ethnic ‘Other’ in order to protect the country’s security. Yes, the government is responsible for the safety of its people, but to what extent can this security be implemented?