Topic: Power
At the time of Pearl Harbor (1941), there were 110,000 people of Japanese descent who were immediately considered people to be feared, simply because of their ancestry. They were guilty by association. Just as many survivors of abuse are considered to be, despite the fact that the sole blame for the atrocities lies with the perpetrators.
We can gain insight into the importance of the voices of the innocent because one wise and caring woman, who was the librarian at the school where many of the children had been attending, before being abruptly shipped to internment camps. Her name was Clara Breed.
Clara went to the train station to see her students off. At the time of that sorrowful departure, she placed in their hands self-addressed, stamped post cards and urged them to keep in touch. The collection grew to 250 pieces of mail, many of them now available at http://www.janm.org/collections/clara-breed-collection/
Over the next few days, I plan to be elaborating on this important work of Ms. Breed and her students.
All to show the power of the individual voice and the need for each of us to do all we can to encourage communication from people who, for whatever reason, have had their voices squelched from the view of the masses of people who are more privileged. At least, privileged because of greater power and wealth, which seems to be the way most of us define "privilege."
