Remember Pearl Harbor

68 years ago today Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Hopefully I don't need to go into detail and explain what happened here in Hawai`i. Although when I was at Linfield, I was honestly surprised with how many of my friends didn't know about December 7, 1941. Some people said in response to that, "well we don't learn about Hawai`i's history." That would've been my cue to make a haole joke, but I restrained myself...except with Sunders.

Knowing about Pearl Harbor and December 7 isn't just part of Hawai`i's history, it's part of U.S. History. That's a fact. A pretty important fact that marked the United States' entrance into WWII.

On Xanga someone post a blog about today in the Tripcrazee blogring. I read it, and left a comment. But what I left out of my comment was how the author of the blog didn't mention a damn thing about the Japanese-American soldiers. Not ONE damn thing. Of all the people to honor on this day, it should be those Japanese-Americans who were brave enough to join the UNITED STATES military, fighting against their home country, or their parents' home country. Almost every Asian-American during that time was looked at like a traitor, a spy, a 1940's terrorist.

Black outs were initiated throughout the state; that was when they put curfews for the Asians in the neighborhoods, making sure you were home by a certain time. Lots of them also lost jobs and their homes. They couldn't go to certain places of town. Concentration camps, also known as internment camps, were established, and a lot of my grandma's family and friends were sent there. I bet it was worse on the mainland.

I am so fucking proud of my grandpa for volunteering for the army, despite being a Japanese-American.

Like many other WWII veterans, the soldiers that came back didn't really talk about what had happened during the war. I never talked to Gi-chan about it, he said nothing. I kinda wish he did tell me about what it was like and how it effected him, but we never got that chance.

So yes, it's wonderful to honors ALL the veterans of WWII, who risked their lives. But today, today is for those Japanese-Americans. Today I am honoring them.

It's also my mother's birthday today.

♫Song of the day♫: "Renegade" by Styx