2010 + 1942= 1984

2010. Kubrick.

1942. Lucas. (Or is it Spielberg? Sometimes I get those two mixed up.)

And how can I leave out Orwell's 1984?

To explain what these years, (not the films), have in common with the book (not the year), I have to begin with the story of my grandma- Kikuko Nakao.

Kikuko Nakao was born in 1920, on a small island off the coast of California. It was pristine, with massive runs of bonito and mackeral off its beaches. Halibut and perch were easily caught from the shore. A short swim across an adjacent channel would get an enterprising swimmer to the growing municipality of Long Beach, known at that time for its...long beach.

Terminal Island, as it is called today, was then called Furusato, and for decades my grandmother, along with her family and approximately 3,000 other residents, formed a bustling community. Many were immigrants from Japan, though most had children born on this island, who were thus American citizens.  All spoke Japanese as a first language, though it mutuated into a unique dialect of its own, a "Janglish", so to speak, and the island was an isolated world centered around the tuna factories, for whom many worked for, or supplied tuna to as fisherman, to make their living.

Their community followed Tuna Street, the spine of the community. Along it, as with any small community, were the typical Houses of Worship, Associations, schools, businesses, all of which supported the culture and the values of the residents.

In this case, the enduring center of the city was the hardware and grocery stores, from which island traffic,  mostly on foot, though bikes and a few autos also prevailed, circulated.

By all accounts, it was a nice place to grow up- safely absconded from the rest of America, and living in orderly, intimate rows of homes, where everyone knew their neighbors.

However, my grandmother's father passed away when she was in her teens, and her life in the factories began at an early age. By the time she was twenty, she was not married, and instead of being able to pursue her studies, she had taken on the role of primary breadwinner for her family, helping her mother- a teacher at the elementary school, raise the younger brothers and sisters.

Locally, the Japanese community was tolerated as contributing, though unassimilated, neighbors. Though Terminal Island kids went to school on the mainland, they came home to "Little Hokkaido" and played mainly with each other. The fisherman and factory workers worked hard, were disciplined, and took lower wages than their white counterparts, so for the most part, Van De Kamp, and other canneries, were delighted to be working with the Terminal Island Japanese.

In fact, throughout California, Japanese farmers and fishermen were becoming succesful. A Truck farming industry was developing on the backs of Japanese labor, and such success was arousing a Nativist rage. How can these Japs keep getting more and more land? was the thinking, getting richer and richer?

Legislation outlawing the purchase of land by Japanese was enacted. Movements to limit Japanese to small ghettoes also followed. REntal of lands was also limited to 2 years, meaning family farms could not persist in one location.

And so when Pearl Harbor was hit by the Japanese Imperial Army, to preemptively cripple the US Navy nestled in the Hawaiian Islands, and the USS Arizona was sunk, despite early warnings, the match hit the tinder that had been building over the years.

In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was infamously passed, decalring that all residents of Japanese ancestry along the West Coast of the United States be given 48 hours to pack up what belongings they cold carry with them, and enter "relocation camps."

Consequently, 120,000 Japanese, the vast majority of whom were citizens of the United States, (and supposedly with all the rights that US citizens enjoy), were moved from their homes along the Pacific Coast, to desert wastelands (often in Native Reservations) ranging from Arkansas to Idaho.

My grandma was one of these 20,000. Kikuko Tanamachi, nee' Kikuko Nakao, was born on Terminal Island, worked the Van De Kamp tuna factory to help put her brothers and sisters through school, and was transformed by EO #9066 from a "US Citizen" to an "Enemy Alien" in the slash of a pen stroke. And in the space of a year, she had moved from factory worker, supporting her family, to "intern" at Rohwer, Arkansas, an area still defined by its proximity to untilled swamp land.

And what of Terminal Island? Today, it is surrounded by the largest port in America- Long Beach Port, concreted over, and blacktopped, surrounded by the nation's most polluted waters. A naval air field is built on one corner, and a penitentary is built on one corner of a sheet of concrete that has no other use expect the occasional transfer of cargo from boat to truck.

And what of the Japanese? Well, in my family, there is exactly one full blood Japanese male, and the rest of Kikuko's grandchildren are mixes of Japanese and German, or Japanese and Mexican. None of us speak Japanese. And only a few of us have even visited Terminal Island, let alone Japan. Our assimilation is complete. Our ethnic identity comes more from having non-white racial features, than being born into a Japanese dominated household, or Japanese influenced community.

Many sociologists have claimed that the high rates of outmarriage in the JA community, and decisions made by parents to not teach their children the Japanese language came from the experience of being vulnerable outsiders, and the drive to be "American" was a rational consequence to help their children "succeed."

So, that was 1942. What of 2010? And how does any of this relate to 1984?

More later...