<Begin Segment 15>

AI: Well, so what is ongoing now in your work with Hate Free Zone and with some of the other organizations that may be also working in conjunction with you?

PJ: Well, you know, there were so many amazing organizations that really came together after September 11th, and I mentioned the Japanese internment, but I remember very vividly a first meeting at the APIC, at the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition, talking about -- where Diane Narasaki facilitated that -- and talking about what had happened after September 11th and she was introducing Hate Free Zone. It was really, we didn't have an organization, I don't think. And I remember a Nisei standing up and he had, I think, fought in the war and he said, "We cannot let this happen." He was very emotional. He said, "We cannot let this happen to somebody else." And so the Japanese American community really jumped in, the Japanese American Citizens League was key in speaking out against what was going on and comparing the experience to 1942, which I think is a very courageous and brave and generous thing to do, because it's easy to say, "It's not as bad as our experience," you know. "There were 120,000 of us who were interned and in camps." But that's not what happened in terms of how the Japanese American community portrayed it. It was really that they were a part of this group that needed to speak out. The Arab American community -- so there are a number of different organizations that have been doing this work and it would be a huge mistake to make it sound like, or let people, anybody who watches this think that it was Hate Free Zone alone, 'cause there are so many different groups around the country and locally.

I think that it has been difficult as time has gone on from September 11th to limit who we're talking about in terms of what's happened, to simply the Arab or Muslim or Sikh communities anymore. And that really what September 11th has done is it's unleashed this wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. And so you find shortly after September 11th, the white supremacist groups linking up with the anti-immigrant groups, who then tried to infiltrate even mainstream groups like the Sierra Club, or traditionally thought of liberal progressive groups like the Sierra Club, with anti-immigrant movements, and a lot of that is linked to this idea that we as a country are not as safe if we have immigrants here. So I think it's been a profound shift in how, not just we think about, bur how we express our attitudes to immigrants and to immigration and who belongs in this country. And that makes our work harder to define because it isn't limited anymore to these specific groups. So we're still in the process of figuring out how we make that transition to doing the kind of systemic work that we need to do to change the perception of who immigrants are in this country, and ultimately of what America really stands for, 'cause I think we're going through a whole redefinition of what the majority, so-called "majority" believes America should be, or is. There are a lot of people who are willing to give up a lot of rights because they don't think those rights will ever actually affect them. And so they're willing to have those rights compromised because they don't see their part in that.

AI: So for example, a right to legal counsel, a right to not be detained without evidence and cause, those kinds of rights are what you're referring to.

PJ: Yeah.

AI: That a, perhaps an so-called average American citizen might feel that he or she would never be on the losing end of a situation, and so...

PJ: Yeah. Well, and to redefine, I mean, there's, it's been amazing to me as we've done this work to see how many people think that the Constitution only applies to American citizens. There is this notion that the Constitution should only apply to American citizens. And actually, we're not guaranteeing rights, the same rights to a citizen as to a non-citizen. And it's true that non-citizens don't have exactly the same rights, but they do have many of the same rights. But there's a movement in this country, I think, to limit the rights of non-citizens. And that's a fundamental shift in who we are as a country. So I think that there's a lot of really big questions that come up and they're being played out through this domestic war on terror and through our international foreign policy and I believe that the two are deeply connected and it's a mistake to separate them. But unfortunately we do. Like Hate Free Zone doesn't work on "international" quote, "international issues," but we did take a stand against the war and we continue to do that because we think it's integrally linked.

AI: The war in Iraq?

PJ: The war in Iraq, yeah. And so, and if you look at the abuses that have happened in Abu Ghraib prison, to me, we shouldn't be so surprised that those are happening, because I call it "when rhetoric meets reality." For two and a half years we have classified Iraqis, Muslims, other countries, as less than human. I mean, we have made all kinds of statements at high levels about Islam, about Muslims, about fundamentalists, about terrorists, and linked 'em all together, I mean, to the point where people think that somehow Osama bin Laden was -- I mean, that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11th attacks. I mean, it's phenomenal to me, the campaign that's gone on since September 11th. But if you look at what President Bush has said and what many of the key leading officials in the country, as well as conservative talk show hosts, have said about Iraqis and about Muslims, it is this "less than human" perspective. And so what happens when that is the main conversation that dominates everything? It's not surprising that people commit these kinds of abuses because they're just taking what they heard and translating it into actions. And I don't think that those kinds of abuses could happen unless you believe that people are less than human, You can't treat somebody that way. And I've been horrified to hear Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts say that people needed to let off steam. And I think that has something to do, again, with our American culture of violence and how we believe that it's okay to do those kinds of things and to be above the law. I mean, ultimately, both internationally and domestically, more and more we're being told that the government, and a very small, the executive branch of the government, has the right to determine, has the moral certitude and the capability to determine what is permissible without the rule of law, without international conventions, without the treaties, without a system of due process. That's very scary to me. I think it's raised a lot of issues that are not gonna go away, but are gonna be fundamental to the discussion and the debate of how this country gets shaped in the future.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.