WELL, TO BE FAIR, THEY WERE INTERNED BY A DEMOCRAT: Amanda Sakuma: My Family Was Interned. Now They’re With Trump.
A rapid assimilation into American culture defined how my family responded to their years in confinement. While they were Americans on paper even before the war, afterward, they were willing to make any sacrifice to prove it. For my relatives who were interned, that assimilation, and love for this country, found a new expression in supporting Mr. Trump.
To prove their loyalty decades earlier, my great-uncles joined the Army, some fighting for the 442nd Infantry, a unit of Japanese-Americans that was one of the most highly decorated units in American wartime history.
My grandfather and his siblings had names like Akira, Atsusa, Takashi and Satoru.
A generation later their sons were given unmistakably Western names: Richard, Steve, David and Glenn.
My dad, an all-American-as-possible star on the high school football team, never learned to speak a word of Japanese. Though his grandparents lived until he was in his teens, he couldn’t communicate with them without an interpreter.
Now we tell immigrants they don’t need to assimilate.