{"id":170340,"date":"2025-08-23T23:46:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170340\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T23:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:46:17","slug":"hands-off-our-history-activists-in-little-tokyo-speak-to-affirm-wwii-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170340\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hands off our history\u2019: Activists in Little Tokyo speak to affirm WWII history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyoko Oda, 80, was born in 1945 into incarceration at Tule Lake Segregation Center, where 30,000 Japanese Americans lived when forced from their homes during World War II.<\/p>\n

Her father, Tatsuo Inouye, was isolated from his family and confined at the Tule Lake Stockade<\/a> \u2014\u00a0 a \u201cprison within a prison,\u201d as Oda called it, used to punish those labelled \u201cdisloyal\u201d for resisting incarceration.<\/p>\n

Eight decades later, Oda shared her story at \u201cNever Again,\u201d an event on Aug. 23 where she and other camp survivors, activists and community members spoke against President Trump\u2019s \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History\u201d executive order.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, our history is in danger of being erased in places like the National Monument at Tule Lake and Manzanar. Our government describes it as content sanitization,\u201d Oda said to hundreds of supporters gathered at Democracy Plaza in Little Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Signed in March by President Trump, Executive Order 14253<\/a> aims to counter what it calls a \u201cdistorted narrative\u201d within federal institutions, including museums and parks \u2014 anything that reconstructs American history as \u201cinherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent letter from the White House<\/a> on Aug. 12 called for a review of all current and future exhibitions at eight of the Smithsonian\u2019s 21 museums to \u201cassess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the directive does not only touch Smithsonian museums, which have long been operated independently but are heavily reliant on federal funding. The ripples of this order have been felt nationwide as some museums have changed their programming as they try to stay clear of topics including gender, sexuality and race, The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

The White House was contacted for comment for this report but did not immediately respond.<\/p>\n

Oda and the more than 30 organizations at \u201cNever Again,\u201d including the National Parks Conservation Association and Los Angeles Conservancy, fear Trump\u2019s directive is an attempt to censor Japanese American history and other Civil Rights sites.<\/p>\n

They say the effects of Executive Order 14253 are beyond the erasure of the injustices faced by the hundreds of thousands Japanese, German and Italian Americans who were interned during World War II.<\/p>\n

The effects span across both past and present, they say, as Immigration and Customs Enforcements detains and deports immigrants nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s more important than ever that these stories are ever forgotten,\u201d Japanese American National Museum (JANM) President and CEO Ann Burroughs said during the event. \u201cThe same laws are being used now, that were used in 1942.\u201d<\/p>\n