Ralph L Carr, Governor of Colorado during WWII.
Subj: WWII Memorial Finds Controversy
Date: 10/22/1999 6:06:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time
WWII Memorial Finds Controversy
.c The Associated Press
By CARL HARTMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Construction is beginning on a national memorial to
Japanese-Americans even as officials debate whether to allow the monument to
bear two controversial inscriptions - a Japanese-American creed and a short
poem.
J. Carter Brown, chairman of the U.S. Fine Arts Commission, suggested the
poetry - in the Japanese form called a haiku - might be omitted. But he
avoided giving an opinion on the text of the inscriptions.
``On the basis that 'fewer is better,' we would in any case leave out the
haiku, which just on visual grounds is not really in a place that is viable
from the point of view of other inscriptions,'' Brown said in formulating a
resolution. ``It's linear on a curved surface. It has a lot of strikes
against it.''
Groundbreaking on the memorial was to begin today near the Capitol. A 15-foot
statue of two winged cranes struggling through barbed wire will dominate the
site.
Previously, some arts commission members complained that the memorial's board
of directors had proposed too many inscriptions for the monument. The
commission considered nine on Thursday.
Charles Atherton, secretary of the commission, said the chief objection
voiced at this meeting was that the planned haiku would be hard for most
visitors to understand. It reads:
``O, America
``Imperfect, stumbling, striving
``Lessons from the past''
The other disputed inscription is a ``Japanese American Creed'' written in
1940 by Mike M. Masaoka, former Washington representative of the Japanese
American Citizens League, more than a year before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor.
``I am proud that I am an American of Japanese ancestry,'' it says. ``I
believe in her institutions, ideals and traditions. I glory in her heritage;
I boast of her history; I trust in her future.''
Brown said the commission could accept that inscription, again from the
visual point of view. However, Atherton said commission members objected,
noting there was no Polish-American creed or German-American creed so a
Japanese-American creed also was unnecessary.
Cherry Tsutsumida, the executive director of the memorial, said its board of
directors would review both inscriptions on Saturday.
Organizers of the memorial chose the texts from a long list. Many refer to
the internment of 115,000 Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. Presidents
since the war have apologized for the measure and Congress has authorized
compensation.
One quotation on the list, but not chosen by the board for inclusion on the
memorial, is from Ralph L. Carr. In World War II he was governor of Colorado,
the site of one camp where Japanese-Americans were confined.
``If a man may be deprived of his liberty,'' Carr said, ``simply because men
now living in the country where his grandfather was born have become enemies
of the United States, then we are disregarding the very principles for which
the war is being waged.
AP-NY-10-22-99 0606EDT
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
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