Nancy Ukai
You may have seen the Oscar-winning 2022 absurdist comedy set in an Asian American immigrant laundry that slips in and out of a parallel universe. The film title also describes the surrealistic moment we are living in now, when daily headlines break the brain.
Everything we read seems impossible: ordering the revocation of foreign student visas at Harvard. A budget that slashes by 40 percent funding for the National Park Service, the steward of our sites of conscience, among them, Amache, Manzanar, Minidoka and Tule Lake.
Everywhere we see our constitutional rights under threat. People snatched off the streets and taken to foreign and domestic prisons without due process, the way our Issei ancestors were rounded up and secretly transferred into forced incarceration in American concentration camps, and Latin American Japanese were kidnapped to Crystal City, Texas.
All at once: Birthright citizenship challenged. If not for birthright citizenship, my Nisei parents, born in Oakland, Calif., would not have been U.S. citizens. How would that have impacted our community’s Sansei, Yonsei, Gosei, Rokusei and hapa community today?
If the visa of Barack Obama’s father, a Harvard graduate student, had been revoked, the future president would not have been.
If the visa of Kamala Harris’ mother, a University of California, Berkeley, student, had been stripped, the future vice president would not have been a historic first.
The Pacific Citizen publishes news, columns and information that is not deeply covered by the mainstream media. The P.C. offers a unique perspective grounded in our history of legal battles, fighting for reparations, being an early supporter of LGBTQ rights and protesting the invocation of laws such as the Alien Enemies Act.
Please consider adding your voice by giving whatever amount feels comfortable to the Pacific Citizen’s Spring Campaign. By supporting the hardworking P.C. staff, who bring connections, community and coalitions to the national Nikkei community, you will be helping to ensure that an essential place for our voices endures. The P.C. will continue to deliver the news: everything you need to know, everywhere, every two weeks.
With Gratitude,
Nancy Ukai,
Pacific Citizen Editorial Board Member and
JACL Berkeley Chapter Co-President