I went to a Lutheran boarding high school in Portland, Oregon in the 1950's. One year, I roomed with Howard T, an American of Japanese decent from Idaho. He said he could remember begging for blackberries along the barbed wire fence of an internment camp in South Idaho. Internment camp? What was that all about? Isn't America the land of the free?
That got me interested in internment camps. Howard was at Minidoka.
Our recent trip to Yuma revealed two other camps in Arizona.
Western Arizona is the land of the Native American, --Apache, Yuma, Pima, Navaho, and many others.
It is also home of the Long Walk, another American internment, practiced on Native Americans.
History teaches that your best chance of participating in the American dream is to be born into a family already celebrating it. Howard had an art show in Portland some years ago. Howard is probably enjoying the American dream as much as I am. But his art asks the question "why did this happen?" The answer begins with the awareness that these things did happen in our history. Sweeping them under the rug won't do. How about you?
Are you living the American Dream?
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